


Wing It, Baby! I Want to Fly with You

by SliceOSunshine



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Classism, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Racism, Slow Burn, Superhero/villain Code, parental coercion to criminal behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-01 01:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 72,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13987230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SliceOSunshine/pseuds/SliceOSunshine
Summary: Harry finds him in a ditch. He never expected the life of a Superhero to be easy. But showing your enemies mercy is so hard.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:** Harry Potter is just your average teenage hero: orphan high schooler by day, crime-fighting bad-ass at night. But he finds his morality put to the test when he comes across his rival - one of the many villains to work for Lord Voldemort, the Supervillain who killed Harry’s Superhero parents - unconscious in a ditch. The young villain’s mask is badly frayed from whatever fight he’d gotten into, and it would be /so easy/ for Harry to just… tear it off. Then there’s also the matter of his injuries; Harry doesn’t know what kind of medical treatment he’d prefer, considering that dropping him off to a hospital would lead to the villain's immediate arrest after receiving care. Then there’s the risk of waking him up and the probability of him attacking Harry on sight. Harry settles along the ditch’s edge to wait for his rival to awaken, shoving his hands beneath his thighs to stave off itchy fingers.
> 
>  **Extra Information:** 1\. Superhero AU! 2. Super Bro Code (no sneaking a look under a person’s mask and revealing their identity without permission). 3. Feel free to come up with the hero/villain names and powers for Harry, Draco, and other side characters!
> 
>  **Squicks/dislikes:** Villain Malfoy’s injuries being a (voluntary) ploy to betray and capture Harry once his guard is down
> 
>  **Maximum Rating:** T
> 
>    
> Wow! I can't believe it, but this giant beast of a fic is completed! When I first submitted the above prompt, I never thought I'd be the one to claim it! Yet here we are. It's been such a long three months, and there're several people I need to thank for helping pull this fic through! First, I want to thank [makoninah](http://makoninah.tumblr.com/), whose [lovely art piece](http://makoninah.tumblr.com/post/165163758757/this-idea-was-quite-striking-for-me) helped to inspire part of the interpretation of what you'll see for Harry's powers, and I also wanted to thank her for granting permission for me to use this idea in the fic. Thank you to the Consent Mods for dealing with my persistent questions. I also don't know where I'd be without the amazing [Cabloom](https://cabloom.tumblr.com/) and [btwnrageandserenity](https://btwnrageandserenity.tumblr.com/). Both helped me figure out very early on many of the places that are mentioned in this fic, dealt with many of my persistent questions, helped me out with various cultural elements, and really helped out near crunch-time. For the numerous people who sent me encouragement during the months of writing this, [silvered_glass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvered_glass) for helping me sort out the beginning, [roonilwazib](http://roonilwazib.tumblr.com/) for answering my grammar questions, and [All_About_That_Ace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/All_About_That_Ace) for being a sounding board for ideas, thank you! Finally, I want to thank the person who's been with me on this project even before I had decided to take it on myself, the one who helped me through many a writer's mood-swing (and even more questions), encouraged me to keep going and not give up, and really helped critique this fic and push it to its full potential--my main beta, [ramenifyouplease](http://ramenifyouplease.tumblr.com/)! Every single one of you are Super Stars!
> 
> Also, for those that want it, here's [google map](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Westminster,+London,+UK/Chelsea,+London,+UK/Shoreditch,+London,+UK/Canary+Wharf,+London,+UK/N+Circular+Rd,+London+NW10,+UK/The+Whittington+Hospital,+Magdala+Avenue,+London,+UK/City+of+London+Cemetery+%26+Crematorium,+Aldersbrook+Road,+London,+UK/Kensington,+London,+UK/@51.5496755,-0.2336089,11z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m50!4m49!1m5!1m1!1s0x487604ddae95b455:0xcd1d64863bc57f40!2m2!1d-0.1356583!2d51.4974948!1m5!1m1!1s0x4876056c23490e4f:0x268033680c352ea!2m2!1d-0.174936!2d51.485093!1m5!1m1!1s0x48761ca4fbee1efd:0x799b6c9640d63bfd!2m2!1d-0.084728!2d51.52849!1m5!1m1!1s0x487602ba7a12992f:0x4d821857a5e4a41!2m2!1d-0.0235333!2d51.5054306!1m5!1m1!1s0x48761b76f69fbc4d:0x88a3bfa73363ed91!2m2!1d-0.2527781!2d51.555004!1m5!1m1!1s0x48761bad9d0cd92f:0x29621921075c1d07!2m2!1d-0.1382501!2d51.566649!1m5!1m1!1s0x47d8a6ff1ac3c14d:0x69a5e05ff3597d94!2m2!1d0.044521!2d51.557947!1m5!1m1!1s0x48760ff450741237:0xedc3db547037295e!2m2!1d-0.1932794!2d51.5010095!3e0) of some of the places the characters visit in the fic if you're not familiar with London

                 

Smoke billows from the gaping hole blown into the side of a dilapidated block of flats. Residents crowd outside as sirens blare in the distance, still several street corners down.

The air surrounding the complex is oppressive on Harry’s lungs when he arrives on the scene. Not wasting any time, Harry searches out for sparks of life and, upon pinpointing three weak pulses, rushes inside.

Two of the victims that he locates are out cold; he hauls them from the building first. The last one clings to consciousness and Harry’s suit as Harry drags him over the threshold and onto the pavement. His sand-colored hair is matted with blood, and coughs rattle his frame when he tells Harry the situation was originally a kidnapping.

Three minutes after Harry has pulled the last victim from the burning complex, the police and paramedics show up.

Relief flooding him, Harry gets out of the way of the medical professionals as they surround the victims. 

But the hand of one of the cops landing heavily on Harry’s shoulder and his dismissive “We’ll handle it from here” causes Harry to straighten. The tightening of the man’s grip after the unwitting zap he gets for touching Harry when he’s unaware sets Harry’s teeth on edge. “We’ll also have to ask you some questions, of course.”

It’s said casually enough that Harry has no doubt he’s their prime suspect. “Of course.” He pauses for a long, drawn-out moment. “Sir.”

He tells them he arrived after the explosion, rescued the remaining victims, and saw little else in the debris and smoke. Aside from the brief tidbit the injured teenager gave Harry, he has nothing else to provide the police.

Unhappy with the scant information and believing Harry knows more, the cop continues interrogating him.

Part of what grates on Harry about his interactions with constabulary while wearing his suit—a clear indicator to all who see him of his hero status—is the disregard and dismissal his law enforcement counterparts display for him. Although, he knows run-ins could turn much worse.

While Harry has been divulging what little he knows of the situation to the one officer, the other one has been asking the teenager more questions whilst a paramedic attends to his head injury.

According to the witness, not everyone in the hostage group made it out. Dead bodies are still inside.

Harry only finds out about that, though, because the officer shouts it to the cop interrogating Harry before dashing inside the building with night stick raised.

The policeman with Harry darts him an accusatory glance, but Harry ignores it. His powers had detected the electrical currents present around the bodies of people still alive. With the smoke being as thick as it was and dead bodies producing no energy output, there was no way for Harry to have known more people were inside. Maybe if he’d only argued with the boat lady from earlier for five seconds instead of five minutes . . . .

He makes a move to head inside the building when an arm jolts out in front of him.

“Oi! Easy there, bovver boy. You’ve done what you’ve done. Now, it’s in the law’s hands.” The man’s mouth doesn’t say “bugger off now,” but the tilt of his head and the jut of his chin certainly does.

Since _Harry_ is the one who arrived on the scene first, saved the people still alive, and fully cooperated with the officer’s demands for information, he’s at least due for some attempt at being treated as an equal. His teeth grind together. It’s his case too. He deserves to learn what happened to the people he’d been unable to save.

However, the glint in the officer’s eyes also says to consider himself lucky he isn’t being stuffed in the back of the police car, so Harry drops it.

Frustrating as hell, but that’s just how Harry’s night’s been going.

From the start of his patrol at 6:00 pm to the current time of 9:00 pm, Harry’s been run ragged.

It began decently enough, sure. He stopped the tube from derailing by short-circuiting its internal wiring and pulled a bloke back from being run over by a passing trolley car.

Next came the robbery around 6:30, where there was a holdup in some business place or other. Harry didn’t really have time to register a name on the sign being flung at him by some gravity controlling crook. He got a tear in his suit for that, the top of his thigh bleeding ever so slightly into the surrounding fabric. 

7:00 pm was the boat theft a little old lady decided to hound him about for a quarter of an hour that seemed to stretch into six. Stolen right from off her lawn. Family heirloom at that—apparently passed down several generations. She also explained to him that he “should get right on the case like any beneficial hero worth the air he breathes” would.

And he was ‘getting on it’ when the explosion from outside the West End shopping district of London shook the very street he stood upon at precisely 7:30 pm. After making his excuses to the _delightful_ old woman, who wouldn’t accept them for an entire five minutes, Harry reached the scene of what wound up being the kidnapping-turned-murder around 7:45 pm.

Reflecting on the frustrations from the whole evening as he leaves the burning flats to the authorities, Harry feels irritation coursing in his veins alongside his electricity.

Harry loves being a superhero. He enjoys saving people in wreckages, rescuing cats stuck in trees, and defeating evil. The joy on the faces of the people he helps are worth whatever comes beforehand, or even after. But as Big Ben chimes for nine o’clock, Harry can’t wait to head home.

Just one more circuit around the last section of London, and he might make it home by ten to eat Mrs. Weasley’s delicious cooking. Sure, it’s a little early for him on a Friday when crime’s busiest, and he doesn’t have to worry about waking up the next day with assignments due for classes. But he wouldn’t mind having a soak in the tub for his sore thigh—after all, a guy working this hard has got to treat himself right sometime.

Thoughts of a bubble-bath surrounded by cinnamon-scented candles after dinner dash from Harry’s mind when he catches the glint of a familiar-looking mask out of the corner of his eye. He immediately jumps down from the rooftop—taking some unfortunate shingles with him—and into the shadows cast by the darkened building.

Taking a breath, Harry works to calm the adrenaline rush so that he can properly power down. Sneaking around while being lit up by his power would be like tailing someone with headlights on.

Once he grows calm enough that his skin and hair stop sparking, and the jagged lines on the body of his suit that follow the pattern of the scars that lay underneath cease glowing, Harry creeps out from behind the building. He sneaks across the empty street until the ditch where he’d seen the flash of white comes back into view. At this point, he’s approaching on his hands and knees, forcing away thoughts of what the police could accuse him of now if they ever catch him like this.

Finally, he reaches the edge of the ditch. Stomach pressed flat to the earth and body tense, he gingerly peeks over the bank.

The first thing that he sees is the white dragon skull mask, visible like a beacon in the moonlight. He has to strain his eyes to make out the form clad in black sprawled out in the ditch. But when he does, he jolts to his feet and powers up again in a flash. Lightning dances on his fingertips as he prepares for an attack that never comes.

Apparently, Paper Dracon is unconscious.

Still, Harry lowers his hand cautiously until it’s at his side. He tilts his head and walks around the ditch for a better angle.

Paper Dracon is lying on his back with his left leg splayed far out—while his right bends his heel toward his body. His right arm stretches above his head as though reaching out for the dragon skull mask several meters away, but the hand stays limp. His left arm remains on his chest, hand twisted in the black fabric over his heart—which Harry hopes still beats.

Patches of what Harry assumes must be skin peek out from multiple tears throughout the costume, noticeable from this distance only for the sharp pale contrast they provide to the surrounding darkness. His long, black trench coat fans out under him like a cape. Little white shreds decorate the ground where any of Paper Dracon’s numerous pockets have also torn.

The villain’s face is turned slightly towards the arm reaching out, so Harry can see that the black under-mask he wears is as severely damaged as the rest of his suit. Normally, the under-mask functions as a generic coverall. All the Villain Agency members wear them. They cover the entire head like a ski mask with no mouth hole and the eye holes done up with white fabric. Harry remembers calling him Venom the first time he saw it, and Paper Dracon sputtering comically before sending a particularly nasty barrage of attacks at Harry. Since then, Harry has learned that Paper Dracon wears the dragon skull face mask for identification.

But now, the mutilation the mask has suffered threatens the identity of its wearer; one of the white eye patches is completely gone, and a long gash slices diagonally through the fabric covering Dracon’s cheek. It’s barely noticeable with the dark red blood encrusting it. There’s even a large enough tear at the top of his head that a tuft of hair threatens to bust through. But it also must be matted with blood for it to stay in place with the wind snatching at the loose fabric ends.

With care, Harry lifts his hand in the direction of Paper Dracon, closes his eyes, and feels for any energy radiating from the body like he did earlier at the explosion site. A light crackling pulse answers him, fainter than he’d like, but present nonetheless.

Opening his eyes once again, Harry sits down cross-legged and considers the prone body.

His villainous rival needs medical attention, no doubt about that. This would be Harry’s prime opportunity to finally put the wanted criminal behind bars if he was certain the police would provide him with the necessary treatment.

If Harry were to take him to the hospital, Dracon would get treated—however, the guy would no doubt be arrested the second he regains consciousness. As much as Harry wants the villain to face justice, he also has plenty of questions crowding his mind. And Harry doesn’t doubt for a second—especially considering the most recent incident—that law enforcement would not make him privy to any of their interviews with Paper Dracon.

Harry sighs. _What happened to you, Paper Dracon?_

There’s the other option of waking him up and just asking, but Harry suspects that whatever caused the severe injuries Paper Dracon’s sporting would have him on edge. Waking up to see a hero he hated would just serve as icing on whatever shit cake Dracon’s already eaten. He'd probably attack Harry on sight and agitate his wounds in the process.

Taking him back to the Weasley household is out of the question. His friends and partners would never forgive Harry for unwittingly revealing the location of their base to a villain in the Agency’s pocket.

But Harry couldn’t just leave him out here to succumb to his wounds and still call himself a hero. Villain or not, pain-in-the-arse or not, Paper Dracon needs help.

Unfortunately for Harry, he’s the only hero on call tonight for this section of London.

While debating what to do, Harry’s eyes become unwittingly drawn back to the top of the mask where the frayed edges of the torn material keep catching in the light breeze. Without truly thinking it over, Harry imagines grabbing at the flicking end and just . . . pulling the mask away.

His heartbeat spikes, and his breath catches in his throat as he envisions finally seeing the face attached to the voice that’s antagonized him for so long. But then his traitorous mind pictures the opposite—a situation where Harry’s the one lying defenseless on the ground, and Dracon’s lifting Harry’s mask away.

He has to grip his elbows and hunch over from the chill breeze suddenly cutting right through him.

 _Okay, so none of that, then_.

Even when he calms himself enough to uncurl, Harry’s fingers still shake. Before looking at the body again, he delicately stuffs his hands under his thighs.

In the distance, he hears Big Ben chiming ten o’clock and, cursing below his breath, wonders how long he’s sat here deliberating. As the night wears on, the temperature will only continue to drop, and then it won’t matter what Harry does with the corpse.

Reluctantly, he removes one hand from beneath his leg and is satisfied to find it steady. No point now in waiting for the villain to come to his senses on his own, not if he wants to remain part of the living. Harry considers his options before directing his hand in Paper Dracon’s direction. Closing his eyes, he feels out for the electrical pull he’d sensed earlier and startles when finding it even fainter than before. _Shit_.

Harry takes a breath and focuses on the energy field surrounding the body, rather than the one circulating through it, and speeds it up a small fraction—

Paper Dracon gasps, his back arching off the ground. Then he starts wheezing and coughing as though choking on blood. For all Harry knows of the extent of his injuries, he very well might be.

Still uncertain as to how Dracon would react when he finally sees Harry, he decides to power down again so as to appear as innocuous as possible.

Groaning, Paper Dracon rolls over and struggles to his hands and knees. He goes to lift his mask up—probably to spit out whatever blood’s collected in his mouth—when his head suddenly whips around to face Harry. “Motherfucker.”

That startles a snort from Harry, and he feels himself power up to respond. “Hullo to you too.”

Dracon remains frozen.

Harry wonders if it’s because he’s realized how much it hurts to move in his state. He swings his legs out from their crossed position and over the edge of the ditch, idly kicking the dirt with his heels. “Rough night?”

“Fuck you.”

“Must be, for you to sound so ineloquent.” Harry wonders how wise it is to be wasting his chance to talk to Paper Dracon by antagonizing him. But that anxious energy’s back and sparking in his veins.

“At least I don’t sound like Siri,” Paper Dracon says, struggling to his feet.

Harry frowns and watches Dracon stagger a bit before his legs remain steady under him. “Hey, my voice is much lower pitched than that.”

In the second it takes for Harry to be swarmed in white, he realizes he should have said something smarter, like _how ‘bout we both go to the hospital?_ He opens his mouth to shout, and a flurry of the stuff flies inside and clings to the back of his throat. Now he’s the one choking, flinging his arms about to swat at the persistent horde around him, only dimly grateful for his mask covering up his nose and lenses shielding his eyes.

Paper Dracon really must be badly injured if he isn’t wasting energy to mock Harry in that moment.

Regardless, Harry can feel his suit beginning to give way under the barrage—not to mention the little bits scraping along inside his mouth.

Gathering his energy to him, he feels it travel faster and stronger from the scar on his forehead down the channels opening up along his body. He can see the light emanating from his suit now on the back of his eyelids; he feels the electrical energy building up to the tips of his fingers.

He lets the pulse loose.

Crackling echoes around him as every last bit of whatever Dracon had attacked him with either turns to dust or catches fire. Harry’s eyes shoot open to see the last flurries of paper scraps burn in front of him.

So, the bastard had attacked him with the ruined bits that had fallen out of his torn pockets. Pretty slick, for a guy who’s half dead on his feet.

Speaking of him, Paper Dracon had apparently been bending down to pick up his dragon skull face mask when Harry’s blast had knocked him to the ground again. He’s struggling to a kneeling position while Harry hacks out the ash still in his mouth.

Harry sees Dracon abandon further attempts to stand in favor of crawling towards his discarded outer-mask. _Nope_. Adrenaline pumping, he bolts forward into the ditch, and his foot catches Dracon’s hand as it closes on the mask.

Dracon makes a garbled sound and tries to jerk his hand from under Harry’s foot, but he holds it trapped between the mask and his sole.

“Wha—what the _hell_ was th- _ah_ —at?” Harry’s coughing only infuriates him further.

Dracon cranes his head up, so Harry assumes the prick’s looking at him. “Which bit?” he asks thinly.

“Which—! The bit where you suffocated me with confetti!”

“Oh.”

 _Oh?_ Harry suddenly remembers Dracon’s hurt.

He takes pressure off the hand under his foot, and it gets whisked from underneath him. Replacing his foot atop the mask, Harry watches as the villain cradles the hand close to his chest. Now that he’s this near, Harry can hear the ragged, stuttered breaths coming from the villain.

“Well . . . now what, _hero_?” There’s the venom that’s been missing.

“You need medical attention.”

A hoarse bark of laughter rips itself from Dracon’s throat. “Really? What was your first clue? Was it all the bloo—”

He cuts off as Harry crouches down to his level and holds out the mask. It feels thinner in his hand than it does under his foot, and Harry notes a crack that threatens to take off the left horn.

Almost like he’s afraid Harry will snatch the mask away should he move too fast, Paper Dracon slowly reaches out the hand cradled to his chest. Once Dracon’s fingers delicately wrap around the mask’s edge, he whips it back to himself, fast as any of Harry’s lightning bolts.

“Great. Now, bugger off.”

“Hold on,” Harry says as Dracon tries to stand. He unthinkingly grabs the villain’s upper arm when he starts to fall over.

“Let _go_!” Dracon rips free and falls anyway.

“I meant it! You need help.”

“And where am I gonna get it? You?”

“Yes!”

“I sure hope your day job isn’t as a comedian.”

Harry frowns, and Dracon sees it.

“You sure did a bang up job helping me when you blasted me—” he takes a breath that sounds like it hurts “—and stomped my hand.”

“’Cause you attacked me with your stupid paper!”

“Not before your first shock!”

Harry pauses a moment. “That was to wake you up.”

“Well, I’m awake. Great bloody job.” He scrambles to his feet, his back to Harry. “Now go home, hero.”

“Not until you get treatment.” Harry notes how Dracon’s back tenses more and wonders when it tensed in the first place.

When Paper Dracon speaks, the venom’s been replaced by exhaustion. “How about we quit playing around.” He turns to face Harry, dragon skull mask on, and lifts his arms, wrists up and hands clenched. “We both know this’s to arrest me.”

“I—No. No, I wasn’t going to—” Harry suddenly remembers his plan to appear innocuous. Biting the inside of his cheek, he powers down.

Dracon’s drawling voice comes from the darkness now bathing them. “Where were you planning on taking me, then?”

 _Er . . ._ Harry hadn’t yet figured that out.

He is still contemplating an answer when his eyes, still adjusting, catch a flash of white as it leaves Dracon’s uncurling right hand. Harry has a moment to shield his head as a giant paper swan catapults into him, knocking him down.                                                                           

 _Dammit_.

The origami bird’s flapping at him with its wings and pecking at him with a sharp beak. As Harry powers back up to blast the swan, he sees another equally large white shape flying away.

By the time he strikes the bird and the paper catches fire, Paper Dracon’s long gone.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The first time Harry meets Paper Dracon, he’s thirteen and debuting as a hero. He had spent the week hacking into the Villain Agency’s secret radio frequency, aided by his experimental zaps to a junk radio his Aunt and Uncle had given to him two weeks late for his birthday. Through a stroke of luck, he had heard blips of their plans involving a dock by the Thames.

He arrives at the covered dock shed where the Agency’s villains appear to be stacking a large cruiser with sealed crates—most of them wearing indistinguishable black from head to toe. Harry creeps along the outer edge of the shed until he reaches the entryway and waits for an opening to sneak inside.

That opportunity comes when one of the ropes holding a crate aloft snaps. A bunch of the men rush to prevent it from falling from the crane suspending it in midair over the water.

Harry dashes inside the shed and takes shelter behind a stack of crates yet to be loaded. He peers around the corner of one and is suddenly mask to mask with one of the black-clad figures. When the man starts to let out a warning shout, Harry shoves his hand on the henchman’s chest and twists it into the fabric before sending an electric jolt stolen from his watch through the man, knocking him out. The grip he has on the unconscious man prevents him from crashing to the floor and alerting the others to the spy in their midst. Harry pulls him into his hiding place and props him up against the crates.

His new plan involves climbing atop one of the crates and lying flat on his stomach. He considers it a stroke of luck that most of the men are still preoccupied with stopping the dangling crate from plummeting into the Thames. Harry turns his attention to the one he’s perched upon and fiddles with the latch next to his stomach. He draws up short of opening the lid due to an old-fashioned dial lock holding the flaps in place.

He toys with the lock, turning it this way and that, while the henchmen finish loading the troublesome crate onto the boat. Just when he hears a satisfying _click_ , a yell comes from his right. Harry twists his head around to see half a dozen guns pointing at him.

With speed he's unaware he possessed, Harry slides off the crate and dives for the electricity box on the wall. As the first shots ring out and ping off the sides of the metallic cargo, he touches the box and pulls a string of electricity from it. Tangible lightning crackling in his hand, Harry whips it out at the villains coming from around the stacked boxes. He watches them stumble backwards, some falling down while others flee. Quick as a flash, he strikes one of the stacked crates, sending it toppling over the other side amid shouts of alarm.

Letting the electric whip disperse, Harry’s about to bolt for the door when he remembers he had just gotten that lock undone.  No way in hell he’d leave without accomplishing _something_ his first self-imposed mission.

Completely aware time is not on his side, he vaults himself atop the crate anyway. He dives for the lock at the same time a miniature paper crane lands delicately on his hand. Harry pauses.

The thing _shivers_.

He feels a smile spread across his face. _That’s adorable._

Suddenly, a whole flock swarms him, and it’s much less adorable.

He’s still swatting and crunching the few little cranes left when a thud reverberates through the crate. Harry catches the last bird as it flits by his ear and casts his gaze upward to eye the new black-clad figure that approaches.

This one’s different from the rest. For one, he’s wearing a pearly white dragon skull mask, its mouth open in a snarl, the pupils of its eyes slit wide so that the wearer can see, and two horns arch out on either side of the face from the forehead. For another, he’s striding with too much swagger in his step to be a mere henchman.

“What have we here? A child causing this entire ruckus?”

Harry thinks that statement is pretty rich. When he stands up, nothing but a head’s difference in height exists between them.

“Quiet type? Or you’re awestruck to see a _proper villain_ in person?” He strikes a pose he must think looks dashing rather than preposterous.

“Proper villain?” Harry mumbles, voice cracking slightly from puberty. He’s spent most of the last three years following the adventures of the Superhero duo Cho & Ced before their sudden retirement from the hero scene this year; compared to the Supervillains those two faced, the only thing about this bloke that measures up is his costume. Although, that’s one thing the villain has on Harry—a proper costume.

As he hears what Harry says, the muscles in the villain’s arms and legs do an odd, twitchy spasm, disrupting his preening pose. “I beg your pardon?” Now, he shifts so that his hands are placed on his hips and he leans toward Harry.

Mouth suddenly dry, Harry wonders if he should be more careful when dealing with his first “proper” villain encounter. _What would Cho & Ced have done?_

The villain leans back and raises his voice. “Got ourselves a little new boy trying to play hero. And what a hero costume he has! Tell me, did your Grandmother knit that jumper for your dog? Are those used joggers? And did that mask come from a cereal box?”

Harry’s hand self-consciously flies to finger at the flimsy felt covering his face from his nose to his forehead. “Er . . . .”

The villain tosses back his head, his laugh cruel. He lowers his voice again just so Harry can hear. “You and I both know this is the big leagues. No room for rubbish like you.”

Lowering his hand, Harry discretely shifts it over to his opposite wrist and feels out for a pulse. _Damn_. His watch is dead from the earlier jolt he’d taken from it.

 _Oh well_ , Harry thinks and punches the bastard right in his pretentious mask.

He’s lucky that it catches the villain by surprise and sends him off balance. He’s unlucky that the villain grabs hold of Harry’s wrist and drags Harry with him off the crate. He’s even unluckier that the villain manages to shift their positions midair so that Harry’s the one that breaks the fall.

His air rushes out of him with a _whoosh_ , and black spots dance before his eyes. From somewhere far away, Harry can hear someone groaning.

Suddenly, the arsehole with the dragon mask’s in Harry’s line of sight—except the mask now rests slightly askew on his head, as if deliberating on the benefits of falling off. He’s gesturing in the direction from which they fell. “You see that? Do you _see_ that?! New Boy—” he points at Harry then to himself “—Professional. The difference between you and me, _hero_ , is that while you’ll go home and take all that off once your play time’s over, I’ll still be here doing this. I’ve trained for this chance my entire life, and some weak little nobody isn’t about to–Ack—!”

The villain’s weight leaves Harry’s body, and while the pounding in his head makes focusing anywhere difficult, he believes he sees a colony of bats clinging to the many pockets in the bloke’s costume, flying several meters above the ground.

“Ginny!” A new voice shouts.

Abruptly, the bats drop the masked villain next to Harry and scatter as they flee out of the shed.

“I said you could come as long as you didn’t go running off!”

“But I had to see what all that noise was about. And it looked like that boy was really being hur—”

“And what d’you expect me to tell Mum? ‘Ginny frolicked off to find her own little adventure by the Thames and injured a gang member’?”

“I wouldn’t’ve dropped him if you hadn’t deadened my communication with the bats.”

“Control over Sonar’s the kind of thing you don’t go playing around with.”

Harry turns his head to get a better look at the newcomers, some of their conversation washing out due to a combination of his panting breaths and the ringing in his ears and the villain groaning next to him.

There’s a boy and girl who both look roughly his age and have equally flaming red hair. They wear citizen fare. They're not heroes come to help him. Unfortunate.

Beside Harry, the villain’s stopped his moaning and is gathering himself together. Harry’d like to do something heroic about it, but his muscles refuse to move. “Hey,” he tries to shout, but Harry’s still winded and it comes out too weak to hear. Harry watches blearily as the villain takes a moment to fix his askew mask and digs around in one of his side pockets.

“New one I’ve been saving up—but fuck it.” He uncurls his hand to reveal a miniature paper swan. As the swan sits on his gloved palm, it starts to shake until its wings beat, and it flies right off the villain’s hand. Only, the bird doesn’t remain small. Instead it grows with each flap.

By the time it reaches the squabbling pair, the paper bird is easily the size of the boy. It goes to tackle the girl, but the boy shoves her out of its path.

“Ron!” The girl, Ginny, shouts.

Ron’s tackled to the ground, the monster bird’s beak lunging towards his face. He dodges and the creature bashes its paper beak into the cement, scrunching it up almost immediately.

“Ron! Quick, quick! I think it’s that boy I dropped earlier.”

While Ron wrestles with the swan, fighting off its wings now that its beak is out of commission, Harry attempts to gather the electricity he can feel circulating in and around his body—a newer ability he’s found he had, but it’s still experimental at best. Tiny sparks flicker at his fingertips and between his hair follicles when Ron finally flings the swan aside enough to toss his hand in the villain’s direction.

The swan crumples, lifeless on the concrete.

“Wh-what’d you do to me?!” The villain’s flapping his arms about like his bird, completely useless in bringing his paper puppet back to life.

“My brother can deaden or amplify other people’s powers,” Ginny says with her chin jutted out.

“Piss off.”

“Oi! You can’t bloody well talk to my sister like that you pompous prick.”

“Fuck off, then.” He starts stomping towards Ron.

Ron’s eyes flick past the villain and catch onto Harry’s through his mask; then they flit in the direction of Harry’s sparking hand. He lifts the hand not holding off the villain’s powers in Harry’s direction. The second Ron drops the arm locked on the villain, Harry’s world explodes.

 

 

He awakens to the smell of smoke and the sensation of extreme heat.  Whatever isn’t blanketed in thick black fumes is covered by a flashing orange. Lolling his head around, Harry can see the shape of bodies in the distance.

Movement now comes with surprising ease, and Harry uses it to roll onto his hands and knees. His memory falls back into place in bits and pieces. The dock. The henchmen. The pro-villain and the bystanders. Helplessness, then a rush of power that threatened to overflow. Then it did overflow. _Boom_.

He looks back to the forms in the distance and can make out Ron’s body lying atop his sister’s. Further away, Harry notes a black-clad figure that must be the villain they’d faced. Fire licks all around.

Harry suddenly feels sick, and his eyes blur. He brings his jumper up to cover his mouth and crawls in the direction of the first set of bodies. Seeing movement from Ron’s body brings Harry up short as he’s made weak with relief. However, when Ginny shoves Ron off herself and starts coughing, he’s filled with a mixture of relief that Ginny’s all right but immediate dread about Ron’s state.

Once Ginny’s collected herself, she puts her arms underneath her brother’s body and works to pull him up.

Still a little light-headed, Harry turns his attention back to the villain, on the other side of him now that he’s moved, and finds him much closer than anticipated.

He’s placed a gloved hand over where his mouth would be underneath his mask, and, now that Harry’s paying attention to him, his wracking coughs can be heard where Harry’s stationed.

Once he’s focusing on noises not involving the crackling of the flames or his own heartbeat, Harry can also hear other shouting in the distance. He suddenly recalls all the henchmen crawling the dock shed earlier.

His eyes flick back to Ginny, who’s still struggling with her brother’s weight, and the villain, whose aid would arrive any second to carry him off.

 _I can’t go home with nothing_.

With more willpower than should be necessary, Harry pries his gaze from the villain’s shadowed eye slits and starts a painful crawl toward Ginny.

“Hey, hero.” The villain’s roughened voice stops Harry.

Harry looks beneath his arm so the guy’s back in his sight range.

“I-I was wr—” He turns away and pretends to have a coughing fit. “You’d be a good fit, actually. In the Villain Agency. With powers like those.”

A twisted feeling enters Harry’s gut. _Join the Agency that killed his parents?_

“Come with me.” He lowers the hand held to his face and holds it out to Harry instead.

Harry blinks and stares at the hand a moment, then turns his face away. “No way in hell.”

He continues his crawl back toward Ginny, ignoring any more of the shouted words sent his way.

Once Harry reaches the girl, she looks up, startled—either because he was conscious or alive, Harry did not know.

He gestures at Ron’s arms. “Need help?”

She eyes him warily; his mask isn’t probably doing him any favors.

“I’m—” The smoke’s too rough in his throat, and Harry turns away his head in a coughing fit. “I’m a Superhero. New one.” Though, he probably doesn’t look or sound much like one at the moment.

“Okay,” she finally says.

Surprised, but pleased, Harry smiles at her, and she shyly smiles back. Together, they each throw one of Ron’s arms across their backs.

As they drag Ron towards the dock shed’s exit, Harry looks back to where the villain had lain and only catches a glimpse of his cronies carrying him off—one even runs back for the dragon mask that must have fallen when they lifted him. Harry presumes they’re headed to the boat loaded with crates filled with cargo he’d never gotten to see.

He tries not to resent that, he really does.

Harry and Ginny are almost at their exit when they’re passing the last crate in their way. Only, this one’s been damaged by the blast. Enough so that a fairly large hole exists in its side.

He lets go of Ron without warning and gestures in a placating way when Ginny shouts, “Hey!”

Harry motions at the crate and holds up a single finger, the smoke too thick to be talking without wasting time coughing. Then he’s scrambling for the crate. In his excitement, he jams his face into the hole and jolts when he’s met by darkness. Cursing himself for a fool, he pulls away enough that light from the fire peeks through.

Everything’s still a little murky with the smoke thickening the air, but he sees a giant letter **E**. Eager, Harry angles his head left, then right, until he makes out two other letters—one on either side of the **E**. **DEM** , whatever the hell that meant. Harry wanted to stay and find out.

“Please! We have to go!”

Reluctantly, Harry pulls himself away from the hole in the crate and takes back his position with Ginny.  Even as they leave the building, he finds himself looking back. Particularly when he hears the unmistakable sounds of an engine revving. _Cho & Ced would have seen the cargo, stopped the villains from escaping, _and _rescued the civilians._ Though, to be fair to himself, he’s only one person whereas they’re two.

The world outside the smoking dock shed greets the three of them with fresh air, an ambulance, a fire engine, and several police cars. Harry and Ginny are wrapped in blankets as the paramedics check them over for serious injuries while Ron gets loaded in the ambulance.

The two of them watch as the firemen pour water onto the engulfing flames.

“Thanks. For the help, I mean.” Ginny doesn’t take her eyes from the flickering firelight.

Harry coughs when he goes to answer, throat stinging from all the smoke he inhaled. Even so, having someone thank him for his help is a new feeling, and he doesn’t know quite how to handle it.

“Oh, right. You probably got the worst of it after Ron. He threw himself on top of me, you know. To shield me from the blast. How stupid.”

It takes Harry a little too long to realize she’s crying. He lifts his left hand out from the blanket and pats her on the arm.

She takes the gesture as an invitation to lay her head on his shoulder, trapping his left arm between them. Well, the odds are pretty good that he’s made some friends out of this ordeal. Saving one another’s lives and whatnot—solid bonding experience.

He tries not to move, but the part where his mask is tied at the back of his head itches like mad. Carefully, so as not to disturb the weeping girl on his shoulder, he scratches at it with his right hand.

Curiously, his fingers catch on something pinned beneath the knot of his mask. Grabbing it between his pointer and thumb, he brings a scrap of paper in front of his face. He unfolds it and sees two words scorched into it in fancy handwriting:

_Paper Dracon_


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Quick important note for the readers!**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> If at any time beyond this point you have difficulty keeping track of who's who regarding Hero Aliases, or you forget which alias belongs to which person, you can hover your mouse over the alias in question for character clarification if you're reading on a desktop or laptop. 
> 
> Unfortunately, if you're reading on a phone, tablet, or similar device, you won't be able to see a hero's true name by hovering over their alias. However, there is [a plugin you can install](https://random.fangirling.net/fun/ao3/title_text_reveal.html) that should reveal a character's true name after their alias if I applied hover text to it. (Understandably, this could make reading confusing. So for mobile or tablet readers, feel free to make a copy of of the Super character legend found in the [beginning notes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13987230/chapters/33181419) in the last chapter—though be wary of spoilers).
> 
> I didn't apply hover text to every single alias every time it appears. However, a good bet on whether an alias has hover text would be when it appears for the first time in the narrative or chapter (beyond Chapter 2), it hasn't appeared in awhile, or there aren't sufficient enough context clues for the reader to infer who it is. For more obvious aliases (Like Paper Dracon, for example), hover text is applied only once—the first time their alias appears in the text beyond this point.
> 
> I'd like to thank [this post](http://ozhawkauthor.tumblr.com/post/149947083472/hover-notes-or-floating-boxesin-ao3) for explaining how to make hover text appear in ao3.

By the time Harry arrives at the Weasley home in Shoreditch, it’s past midnight. He had to take a bus since reaching for his electricity felt like touching the frayed end of a wire. Probably what he gets for powering up and down so much in such a small time-frame.

When he arrives at the door, it’s locked, and the key is missing from under the mat. He raps the knocker and stomps his feet to bring back some circulation while he waits on the stoop.

Hermione answers the door in jeans and a pink jumper, her deep twist crochet braids tied up in a ponytail. “Harry! Where’ve you been? It’s over an hour since you should’ve been back.”

“Oh, you know, Hermione. When hero duty calls . . .” Harry says.  Shoving his hands into his pockets and shuffling past her inside the house, he tells himself there’s no reason to feel guilty.

Looking back, he sees her pursed lips and the slight skeptical arch of her eyebrow. He takes his hands out of his pockets and feels his smile become more sincere as he rubs the back of his head. “I’ll tell you all about it after dinner.”

She sniffs dramatically and looks away. “I’ll go heat it up.”

Harry heads upstairs to his room and drops the duffel bag with his costume and mask inside it onto his bed. It needs serious washing with all the rolling around in a ditch he did tonight. Changing back into his civilian clothes in a narrow alleyway where he’d dropped the costume’s arms into a puddle certainly didn’t help any.  But that is a problem for Well-Fed-Harry.

He hops into the shower to wash off the sweat and grime. The warm water’s a mercy to his aching muscles, and he takes a moment to lean his arm on the wall, lay his forehead against it, and just enjoy the feeling of water droplets beating the tension from his back. His breath leaves him in a wheezy sigh.

Shifting his head beneath the spray, he hears crackles as the remnants of electrical static leaves his hair. Now when it dries, it’ll fall back into its natural tightly curled state instead of looking like an afro. It’s been happening as long as he can remember being able to power up. The electricity loosening his hair enough to separate it and make it stand on end works wonders for hiding his civilian identity.

He also remembers Hermione having one of her nerd moments the first time he’d tried explaining it to her when she'd asked about it. She’d muttered “of course!” and then she said something about his chemical makeup changing with his power coursing through his system, and about pregnant women’s chemical shift sometimes affecting their curl patterns. He’d nodded along at the time, even though he half understood. However, he had to draw the line when she asked him to try sending electricity through her to see if it would cause the same effect. Some quests for knowledge have to be abandoned for safety’s sake, and the power coursing through his system is one of them.

His power coursing through his system . . . .

Harry glances down, eyeing the long, jagged, washed-out scars crisscrossing his dark skin. They stretch down his whole body—fingers, toes, and all—from the source scar marring his forehead. By the time he wakes in the morning, they’ll have receded until nothing but the original remains. They’ll stay away until the next time he calls on his power—which would very likely be tomorrow’s patrol.

Just thinking about his scar sets his forehead throbbing, and he shoves it under the water to soothe it.

Once he finishes showering, Harry puts his pajamas on, tosses his regular clothes into the hamper, and heads downstairs to the kitchen.

Hermione’s recently finished heating the food, and Ron’s leaning on the counter in a nightshirt and a pair of tan trousers.

“Heya, mate,” he says as Harry walks into the kitchen.

“Harry!” Hermione nabs the plate she’s prepared him and places it at his spot. Then she puts one down for Ron.

Harry raises a brow and asks, “You didn’t eat yet?”

“O’ course I have. We weren’t about to wait—”

Hermione glares as she sets down her plate.

“—Uh— _I_ wasn’t about to wait the whole time you were out. But second helpings are a must. It’s Mum’s food.”

Mrs. Weasley has been busy lately with more and more requests for her to use her Control over Space for clients looking to expand the insides of their homes. As such, Harry, Ron, and Hermione have had to take turns preparing meals. A Molly Weasley-cooked meal is a treat indeed.

Harry bobs his head, tucking into his treacle tart.

“Plus the way Hermione was acting, you’d think you were out longer than just an hour—”

“Oh, Ron, I was just a little worried that Harry hadn’t made it back yet is all.”

“’A little worried’? Mate, she was dead set on dragging me out to scour the ci-Ow!” Ron glares as Hermione innocently stares at her plate.

“Anyway, enough about us, Harry,” Hermione says. “What happened?”

Harry sets his utensils down. “Well, for the most part it was regular patrol stuff. Helped out at some robbery scenes, stopped a Tube derailment, saved some folks.” Harry shrugs. “The usual.”

Ron’s nodding. “Pretty quiet night for me in West London. Caught some kids messing with people’s brake-lights in Kensington. Had to break up a domestic situation in Chelsea, though. Kind of hard to do with my power-set.” Ron shrugs. “But I was able to hold the situation down until the police showed up.”

Hermione frowns. “I hope they’re okay.”

“I’ll probably check on them tomorrow or in a week. Whenever I have time.”

“Well, there was the occasional scuffle I had to deal with here in Shoreditch, and there was this bloke wearing a Harrow uniform following some ladies home, so I set a fog on him that should be wearing off,” she glances at the clock hanging on the wall, “in five minutes.”

Ron inhales some of his drink. “You have your powers’ effects _timed_ now?”

“Yes. If I want to be as effective as possible—”

“Blimey, that’s incredible dedication.” His blue eyes have gone soft with the affectionate look he sets on Hermione.

Her lips press together in a wavering line like she always does when Hermione’s embarrassed, and she brings a hand up to her face as if to shield her pleased reaction from Ron as her brown eyes dart away from him. They land on Harry. “Oh! Harry! Before I forget.”

Harry coughs into his fist. “Yeah?”

“Mrs. Jenkins’s kids were asking after you. I had to warn them off playing in the street, but they wouldn’t leave until I let them know that _Izulu_ —” she winks at him as she says his Superhero name “—would be returning to patrol next week.”

Harry tries to hide the fond smile crossing his face by stuffing some Shepherd's Pie into his mouth. After he’s swallowed, he asks, “And did you see Mr. Patil? I want to know if that shock job I did on his car is still letting it run.”

Ron snorts. “Parvati did do quite a number on it. D’you reckon she’s still holed up in her room?”

“Hope not. Lavender had said she’d try to get her to come out. She needs all the emotional support she can get with her powers acting out of control.”

“I believe so,” Hermione says. “Lavender knows her girlfriend well enough to know what to say. Plus, Mr. Patil told me he, Mrs. Patil, and Padma spent the last several days shoving everything remotely metallic out the door. And yes, Harry, it’s still working fine. Your quick-fix should hold until he can get an appointment at the repair shop.”

“That’s good.”

“But anyway, the ‘usual stuff’ wouldn’t hold you up that long.”

“Yeah, what else happened, mate?” Ron asks.

“Well, there were two explosion-related incidents—a botched robbery at some business and a kidnapping-turned-murder in the residential area—”

 Hermione’s eyes go wide. “Oh, no!”

Ron just winces in sympathy.

“Got a nice tear in the leg of my suit at the first one and had a pleasant chat with the police at the second one.”

“They better not still be giving you grief,” Ron says, his eyes turning flinty.

“Ah, not as much as usual,” Harry says in a placating manner. “Not since Alpha Bee had that talk with them.”

“It’s been nearly three years since you’ve debuted as a hero. They should’ve stopped on their own.”

Hermione gestures at Ron. “Well, you blowing up at them the last five times didn’t really help.”

“Hermione, I’m not gonna just sit back and watch my best friends be treated like they’re villains!”

“You don’t think you’re the only one frustrated, Ron?”

Ron glowers at his soup. “Harry’s a damn good hero. You both are.”

Hermione sighs and strokes the back of Ron’s head, brown fingers curling in the red tufts. “We know. And the Order. And after three years of working to the bone, a good portion of London, too. Storming down to the station will do us more harm than good.”

Harry mostly sat poking at a stray pea on his plate through the exchange, the argument a familiar one. He’s glad this one doesn’t seem to be going on as long as usual.

Ron lifts his head up and rests it on his hand. “So, what’d the plonkers do this time?”

“Eh, mostly took over the situation and sent me on my way after asking what I knew.”

Ron raises an unimpressed eyebrow while Hermione bites her lip.

Letting out a breath, Harry rakes a hand across his head and ends at the back of his neck. “Tossed me accusatory looks the whole time. Didn’t give me any information in exchange for mine. And I wasn’t allowed back in the building to see the people I couldn’t save.”

“There were multiple victims?!” Hermione gasps while Ron mutters, “bastards” under his breath.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, Harry!”

“Rescued three of them, though. I’ll have to stop by the hospital tomorrow to see if the survivors knew the other victims. See if I can hunt down the families and let them know. Offer what comfort I can.” He shrugs like it isn’t a big deal. Like doing so will change anything.

Ron asks, “D’you know what caused the hostage situation, or why it turned into murder?”

Harry shakes his head. “Nor do I know what caused the massive explosion that probably killed at least one of the victims.”

“Damn, forgot about the explosion.”

“If it’s not yellow-taped too much, I’ll try to have a look around there too. See what I can find out in daylight.”

“Hermione and I’ll come too.”

“Oh, no, we can’t!” Hermione says. “Did you forget about that giant history report due Monday?”

“Umm . . . .”

“And I _know_ you didn’t do your section of the project yet.”

Ron’s cheeks flush.

“Sorry, Harry. You’ll have to do that on your own. I _refuse_ to get a bad mark on a project we’ve had a _month_ to do, just because _someone_ thinks slacking off would mean I’d do it for him.”

Harry waves her off. “It’s fine. I can do it myself.”

“Ouch, the betrayal,” Ron says with a hand over his heart.

“Brought this on yourself, mate. Nev and I finished ours Wednesday.”

“That’s only because you’re doing yours on something interesting.”

Hermione sputters for a moment. “The usage of special outfits during the plague is plenty interesting!”

“Ugh, but it’s like reading up on early, low-tech, Superhero costumes.”

“That’s why I picked it!”

“Yeah, _you_ picked it!”

Before they forget he’s even there, Harry waves his hands to get their attention. “Also, one more thing.”

They both turn to look at him when they see movement in their periphery.

“Ran into Paper Dracon near the end of my shift.”

“What’d that prick want?”

“I hope you didn’t get into a fight,” Hermione says.

Harry pauses. “Eh, kind of? Like, I found him unconscious in a ditch. He was pretty injured.”

“You turned the bastard in, right?” Ron asks.

Feeling warm under his collar, Harry pokes at his pie.

Hermione stills Harry’s jabbing by placing her hand atop his. “Could you tell who he’d been fighting with?”

Harry pulls away. _“_ Er . . . Uh. No. No, I didn’t look for anyone else. Figured they’d be long gone. And, uh, his injuries were far too generic.”

“Try describing them anyway.”

He sucks in his bottom lip for a moment and looks at the kitchen light swaying imperceptibly above them. His lip slides back out with a light pop. “He had lots of cuts all over him. Like someone was slicing away at him. Some larger and longer than others. I couldn’t tell how deep they were, but, by the way he struggled to move, either they or other injuries I couldn’t see were causing him distress.”

Toying with his empty cup, Ron asks, “D’you think it was poisoned? The blade tip?”

“Dunno.”

“Hang on.” Hermione’s nose scrunches as she thinks. “Harry, didn’t you say you found him unconscious?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“But you just said he was struggling around and was showing clear signs of distress!”

“Oh. I-I woke him up.”

“Woke him up?”

“Yeah.”

“She means _how_ ’d you wake him, mate.”

Apparently, Ron’s still chafed by Harry’s earlier betrayal.

"I just, you know—” Harry gestures with his hands “—gavehimalightzap.”

“Sorry, one more time.”

“Didn’t quite catch that, mate.”

Harry takes a deep breath. “I. Gave him. A light . . . Zap.”

Ron snorts into his drink.

“ _Harry_!” Hermione turns to Ron and flicks him on the shoulder. “And it’s not funny!”

“It is, a little bit,” Ron mutters.

“No wonder he was stumbling around in pain.”

“I told you!” Harry says. “It was just a light one! I didn’t put anything serious behind the first one.”

“You probably agitated what injuries he—W-what do you mean ‘ _first one_ ’?”

“Jeeze,” Ron says. “You couldn’t’ve just tapped him on the shoulder or threw a pebble?”

“I didn’t want him to wake up and attack me—which he did! And my second blast hit him accidentally when I was trying to rid myself of his stupid paper swarm,” Harry says.

“So, you fought a wounded man?”

“No. I mean, I tried being nice. But he refused when I offered medical help.”

Hermione starts lightly twisting a dark curl with her index finger.  “Well, to be fair, you are his enemy.”

“And you did zap him first,” Ron adds.

“And where were you planning to take him for treatment?”

Harry looks away from them. “Er, I didn’t know. I don’t really know now. But I couldn’t just leave him to succumb to treatable injuries.”

“Probably why he turned you down, then,” Hermione says. “You have to plan ahead for these types of things.”

“Plan ahead? How could I know he’d be unreasonable about getting his wounds seen to?  I had half a mind to drag him off to a clinic if I had to!”

“Harry, please tell me you didn’t try to force him to go get medical help with you.”

“I didn’t force him to do anything! He seemed hell-bent on ignoring his state and insisting he didn’t need my help.”

Ron shakes his fork at Harry. “Then you should’ve left him to his own business, mate.”

“Wha—”

“I think Ron’s right, Harry.”

“But, Hermione, you didn’t see him. He looked to be standing on his last leg.”

Hermione hums into her tea cup. “I know that this was a situation none of us have really been in before. Often, we rush in right when an emergency is occurring. There’s no real time to ask questions. We just act based on what information we have to go on at the time. Then once the immediate danger has passed, we’re often thanked for what we’ve done.” She taps the table next to where she’s placed her saucer. “I don’t think we’ve run into any serious problems yet that people haven’t been happy to have us solve.”

“Yeah, plus helping out a villain?” Ron snorts. “I’m a hero myself, and I hardly believe that one. Couldn’t’ve expected _him_ to.”

Harry stares at his hands. When he looks back up, he hardly knows how much time has passed. “Then what should I have done?”

Hermione says, “Try asking him what he wanted you to do, if you were really set on helping him. Or maybe asked him how you could have helped, if you wanted to lead the conversation in that direction.”

“He would've just told me to piss off.”

Hermione gives him a light smile. “Then that’s what you do.”

Harry’s head thuds on the table.

“Don’t beat yourself up too hard, mate. After all, everything’s better in hindsight.”

He impressively suppresses the urge to flip Ron the bird.

“So, what happened in the end? How did you get separated?” Hermione asks.

“He attacked me with one of his giant paper swans. Think he flew away on another one while I was distracted.”

“Well, there you go,” Ron says. “That’s what you get, trying to assist a villain. We’re on polar opposite ends of the spectrum. And, you don’t have to feel guilty because he clearly wasn’t _that_ injured.” 

Hermione pats at Harry’s hands lying on the table top. “Paper Dracon’s probably getting treated at one of the Villain Agency hideouts. No need to stress any more about it tonight.”

When Harry doesn’t give a returning smile, Ron jumps up from his spot.

“Whelp, since it’s Friday, and we’ve all had a very stressful evening, I say we deserve to unwind.”

Several shot glasses and a wine bottle clunk onto the table, and Ron reclaims his seat.

“Ron!”

“What? Look at him, Hermione.”

She does.

“Have some pity.”

After a moment, she huffs, grabs the bottle, and pours Harry the first shot.

 

It’s 2:30 in the morning when they finally hit the sack. But not before Hermione drags both Harry and Ron into an uncomfortable embrace with the table in the middle.

“I lo- _hic_ -ove you both. You know that?”

“Yes, Hermione,” Ron and Harry both mumble against her hair.

“Hmmm—haha. A lot.”

Harry pats at her back.

“Come to the bookstore with me.”

“Now?”

“Ahah, ‘course not, silly Ronnie-bonnie.” She lets go of Harry to tap Ron’s nose and giggles when he goes red. “Next week. Big release. Been wanting it for ages.”

“Er, not that I’m saying no, but why do you need us?” Harry asks.

“Harry, speak slower, please.”

“Think he asked why you want us to come?” Ron repeated.

“Oh.” She pulls away and looks down a moment. Then, clasping her hands, Hermione looks up at them with wide eyes. “Don’t wanna wait in line by m’self.”

Harry hears Ron choke on his tongue. Suppressing a smirk, Harry says, “We’ll think about it tonight and discuss it tomorrow, okay?”

“Yay, Harry!” Hermione flings herself into Harry’s arms and pecks him on the cheek.

Ignoring Ron’s stare burning into the side of his skull, Harry continues speaking slowly. “Now, I say we all head up for bed, yeah?”

“M’kay.” She pulls out of Harry’s arms and attempts to stand straight.

“You can go hit the sack, Harry and I’ll clean up here,” Ron says.

“Ah, thank you.” She blows Ron a kiss, pats Harry on the shoulder, and heads outside the kitchen.

As Harry and Ron work on cleaning up the plates and saving salvageable leftovers, they hear her climbing upstairs and getting ready for bed.

“Did you really almost head out and search for me?”

Ron runs a hand through his hair. “Well, you did have us quite worried for a little bit there, not knowing what was keeping you.” He shoves the dishes in the sink. “Hermione wanted to head out right at 11:20, but I wanted to wait and see. I mean, I know you can handle yourself, so I figured it'd only be something you’d need our help with if you weren’t home by midnight.”

“Well, thanks.”

“What’re mates for?”

Lastly, they clean up the drinks. Ron calls dibs on the shot glasses; Harry grabs the quarter empty bottle of wine and places it on the shelf. Hermione’s always been a lightweight.

 

~~*~~

 

As Harry readies himself for bed, having bid Ron goodnight, he finds his mind drifting to Paper Dracon after having to remove the duffel bag containing his ruined suit from atop his bedspread. _Who could've possibly been clever or strong enough to leave such a cunning villain in that state?_

Harry doubts another hero would've taken the trouble to have such a vicious fight with Dracon only to abandon him in a ditch somewhere. At the very least, he would’ve been abandoned at the police station.

Another villain would make more sense. Likelier to fight and leave once Paper Dracon’d been defeated.

_Unless Dracon won? And collapsed after chasing his opponent off?_

It’s a possibility, considering he had attempted to pull himself together in front of Harry. But he hadn’t been very convincing. Harry doubts another villain wouldn’t have noticed his state either. The way Dracon had carried himself also suggests the fight had been more than just a scuffle.

While he would prefer not to think about it, Harry knows he has to entertain all possibilities.

 _If Dracon’s opponent had aimed to take his life, leaving him in that abandoned area fits a little better._ The dwindling pulses of life that came from his unconscious body definitely told Harry that had Paper Dracon stayed in that ditch overnight, he would have succumbed to his wounds.

 _But, why take that chance? Did the person Dracon fight know that they'd caused enough damage for that result?_ That would put forward the notion that they'd done so before. Yet Harry doesn’t remember coming across any dead people with similar marks.

Still, following the theory that it had been a fight to the death, Paper Dracon could've fled from his attacker, just like he had fled from Harry. _But then why flee to an area away from medical attention? Unless he'd been headed towards one of the villain bases and collapsed along the way?_

Harry bites his lip. If that'd been the case, then Dracon could've easily collapsed again after fleeing from Harry. He could be dead right now.

Harry’s already reaching for his duffel bag when he remembers his costume’s currently out of commission. _Damn._

 _Besides,_ he reasons while staring at his ceiling, _if Paper Dracon’s dead, running out to find him won’t help now._

He needs to focus. _Who would Dracon get into a fight with and why?_

Harry knows the bastard’s enough of a prick to rub a dog the wrong way, so it’s not really a matter of whose shit list he’s on. Rather, it’s a matter of who’s ballsy or skilled enough to challenge him and cause serious damage.

While a villain is more likely, completely dismissing other options would be remiss of Harry. A hero or unknown vigilante still could've been involved.

Harry turns over several more times before giving up on sleeping. Reaching over to his nightstand, he nabs the current novel he’s reading and flicks on the lamp. His bookmark falls onto his chest as he opens to his saved page. He twirls the worn paper with _Paper Dracon_ signed on it between his index and middle fingers. Five more minutes pass before he tears his eyes away from the faded inscription and focuses them on the open book.

By 5:30am, he falls asleep with the book and 'bookmark' lying on his chest.


	4. Chapter 4

“Now you’re sure, Ma’am, that the boat’s been gone for over a month?”

“That’s what I said.” Tracey Davis’s gum bubble bursts loudly. Her tongue flicks out to scoop the remnants back into her mouth.

Harry turns back to the older woman beside him. “See, Mrs. Figg? Your neighbor says that you had your boat moved over a month ago.” He plasters a smile on his face. “You don’t need to fret about it anymore.”

She waves off his reassurances. “I know what I did and didn’t do with my own property! I did not have it moved anywhere! Tell me, young man.” Her face comes close enough to Harry’s that her nose nearly brushes his mask. “Why would I move a boat—a b—”

“—oat that’s been passed down several gen—” Harry mutters with her.

“—erations, mind you—that’s a nice playground for my cats?” Mrs. Figg’s foot taps as she watches him.

“O-oh, I didn’t know you had . . . cats. Yes. That, uh, changes things greatly.” He clears his throat as he faces Tracey again.

Her cell makes little _ping_ ing noises as her thumb taps the screen.

“Ah, _ahem_ , Ms. Davis?”

The unmistakable sound of crashing in _Flappy Bird_ bursts from the phone. “Shit. My high score!”

“Er, sorry about that.”

Tracey glares. “What more do you want? Aren’t we done here?”

“I just wanted to know, uh, if you remember _why_ Mrs. Figg has supposedly moved her boat, and where to?”

“How should _I_ know that?” Her eyes roll skyward. “I just know that at the end of the last month, her nephew comes along and carts it away.”

“K-Kevin?” Mrs. Figg’s voice comes out wobbly.

“Your nephew,” Harry says.

Mrs. Figg says no more. Instead she’s grasping at the edges of her coat, but they keep slipping through her fingers.

“Allow me to help you get that.” Harry reaches out and pulls the coat tighter around her frail frame. “It's getting nippier out now that Autumn’s here.”

Mrs. Figg continues looking at Tracey. “ _My_ Kevin came by?”

Tracey stares into her misty eyes. “Yes.”

“O-oh.”

“Well, Mrs. Figg?” Harry asks, gripping her sleeve in case she falls over, “Would you have given your nephew the boat? If not to keep, maybe to use for a bit?”

She looks down at her shoes. “For my Kevin?” She shifts her gaze to Harry’s mask. “Yes.”

“All right. So, you remember letting him borrow it?”

Her expression remains contemplative. “I…I don’t know. But I must have. I mean, he wouldn’t have stolen it from me. He could’ve just asked, and I’d have said yes.”

“How about you continue thinking on it, and I’ll get back to you when I’m next on patrol here?”

Fiddling with a coat button, she doesn’t answer.

“All right?”

She nods.

“Okay, would you like me to escort you back to your—”

“I’m fine walking to my own house!” Her finger jabs at his chest. “It’s only next door. I’m not that old yet.”

Harry pulls back at her outburst.

“Aren’t you supposed to be patrolling?”

He opens his mouth to answer.

Mrs. Figg takes a step forward, finger still raised. “Don’t go slacking off. Get going!”

Not exactly like Harry had planned to have a good portion of his time taken up with the boat-hunting job from last night, but he didn’t wait to be told again.

He continues his route to Whittington Hospital by roof, rather than opting to walk amongst the crowd where anyone can reach out and demand a two-hour boat search.

When he’d woken up an hour before noon, his breakfast and a note had been waiting for him in the kitchen. The note inscribed with Hermione’s handwriting claimed she and Ron had left for The British Library, but that Ron had made him breakfast. Beneath Hermione’s signature, in Ron’s scrawl, was a post-script that told Harry Hermione'd brought up the topic of the bookstore again. He said he’d agreed and mentioned Harry’s tentative agreement the night before.

When Harry sees Hermione this evening, he’ll have to tell her he’s a definite _yes_.

After breakfast, Harry'd opened his duffel and took stock of the damage. The puddle water had stained the red fabric and was particularly noticeable on the light gold lightning pattern that spiderwebs its way across the suit. Additionally, He could see many more rips on the uniform in the sunlight than he could in a back alleyway. He’d tossed it in the washer, making a mental note to purchase red and gold thread on his way home so Madam Malkin could fix it when he drops it off. His mask hadn’t been in as bad a shape as the rest of the outfit, despite it needing its own mending; it could still be worn.

Choosing which articles of clothing to wear in his costume’s stead had proven to be a half hour feat. At first, Harry’d debated just wearing plain clothes but knew he’d never be allowed into the places he was going today if he appeared as a civilian. His accessibility even as a Superhero had its doubts. Plus, his image as a professional who took his job seriously would be put into question.

It was that last line of thought that led Harry to his current solution—dress to impress, tuxedo-style.

The limited range of motion provided by the tux had prompted Harry to take the more traveled ways of transport, a mixture of bus rides and walking—which led to his run-in with the boat lady from last night.

Even as Harry finds himself drawing closer to the hospital, he knows by the tight pull at the seams of the suit that he can’t travel by rooftop on the way home. Or get into any fights. He’s already pressing it, being powered up in the compact fabric; he’ll have to dowse it in anti-static spray once he’s finished for the day.

The glass awning entrance of Whittington Hospital comes into view, and Harry drops down from the house roof. Looking both ways, he crosses the street and strides across the cobbled entryway, passing the wall with “Whittington Health” embossed on its surface.

In the hospital’s atrium, he finds the front desk. Rapping on the synthetic wood gains the secretary’s attention. “Uh, hullo. I’m here to see some folks that were brought in last night? At the big explosion site several streets down.”

The nurse on shift eyes Harry up and down. He fixates on Harry’s mask, just below the point where Harry’s eye lenses are located. “And you would be?”

 _Great. Someone new._ “Izulu. A Superhero.” Harry taps at the mask where the nurse’s line of sight is. “Helped out those folks. Before the emergency vehicles arrived.”

He has the decency to blush and look away. “Oh. Right. Didn’t know that.”

Harry watches him shuffle paperwork on the desk.

“You’ll have to go to the Coyle Ward. The area for trauma patients. That’s where they’d be after getting done at the Emergency Department.”

 _Oh._ “Great. Thanks for the help.”  Harry turns to leave.

“Say . . . .” The man’s not looking at Harry when he twists around to face him. “Are you really a hero?”

Like he hasn’t heard that one before. “I’ve found it depends on who you ask.”

He finally looks at Harry, peering at him through narrow eyes. “But _are_ you?”

“I try to be.” Harry heads for the stairs before the nurse can throw another line at him.

 

The Coyle Ward remains relatively quiet as Harry passes through its entrance doors; two nurses are stationed at its reception desk.

The nurse with the brown hair looks up from her computer when she hears his approach. “Izulu! Here to see some patients?”

 Harry feels something loosen in his chest at seeing a smiling face. “Yeah, Nurse Tonks.”

“Why, we haven’t seen you around here in forever and a day. We were starting to think you’d forgotten about this Hospital. Isn’t that right, Alastor?”

Nurse Moody glances over Harry with his good eye and grunts. “And just who is he here to see?”

“Oh, well—there were some patients that were brought in from an incident that happened about two miles from here. From the flat explosion? Anyway, I only really know the name of the guy who was conscious, but I’d like to see them all any—”

“Not like that, ya aren’t.”

“Eh—Excuse me?”

Moody gestures at all of Harry. “Not like that. All that electricity jumping off of ya’s bound to mess with the tech in the rooms. I’m surprised someone hasn’t flagged you down about this yet.”

Harry brings his right arm before his face and is surprised to see the level of electricity skittering along the sleeve, almost a meter away from the actual fabric. He’d forgotten what it’s like to be powered up without his costume on; without its assistance containing the electricity, Harry couldn’t afford to be unaware of the energy flowing off him.

“Er . . . Sorry about that.” He takes a breath and, as he slowly releases it, tries to bring the level of energy pumping through him down alongside his heartbeat. When he looks back at the sleeve, Harry feels a spark of pride at how much calmer the electrical jumps appear. “First time in a while I’ve been powered up without my hero suit.”

“You still can’t see no patients like that,” Nurse Moody says.

“What? Why not!”

 “I just told ya! That electricity could mess with the machines.”

“But I have it under control now!”

“You just said it’s been awhile since you’ve used your powers without your costume. You expect us to believe you have ‘em suddenly under control?”

“Sorry, Izulu,” Nurse Tonks says.

“Well, then what I am I supposed to do? Run home and get my hero costume?”

Alastor Moody grunts. “Power all the way down, lad.”

 _What_? He can’t—

“I can’t power down!”

“Why not?” Tonks reaches a hand across the desk as though to grab Harry’s, but he doesn’t respond to her movements. “Don’t you trust us to watch out for anyone bad coming in? No one’s going to try to hurt you here.”

Harry hesitates. As he silently stares into Nurse Tonks’s eyes through his lenses, her face falls. “It—That’s not quite it. I . . . .” He looks down to see his hands have balled into tight fists on the desk’s surface. Loosening his fingers, Harry settles on drumming them on the tabletop instead before glancing back up at the stationed nurses. “Each—Each hero . . . tends to have their own way of . . . protecting their real identity. The most commonly known way is, of course, wearing a mask of some variety—”

“And you wear a mask, so what’s your point?” Moody grunts.

“—but it’s not the only way. Even masked heroes have additional, uh, safety measures? Each one integral to keeping their identity safe.” Harry can feel sweat trying to crawl down his back. He doesn’t have to tell them about his scars since those wouldn’t be immediately affected by the lack of electricity present, and most of them aren’t visible in the tux like they’d be in his hero suit. His hair would deflate quite a lot but wouldn’t turn to his tighter curls until he removed all remnants of electricity. However . . . “M-my power . . . affects the way I . . . sound. To people. It’s like a mask—for my voice.”

Nurse Tonks blinks. “Like a voice enhancer? The kind they use in anonymous interviews?”

Harry gives a hesitant nod. “Sort of. It gives a robot-like feel to my voice, yeah?”

Both nurses agree.

“So, I can’t just power down. I’d be like removing part of my mask, and that’s always risky.”

“Hmm . . . I say he might have the right idea not trusting anyone. Prolly not easy, what ya do. Always gotta watch your back.”

Those might be closest to the nicest words Harry's ever gotten from Nurse Moody.

Nurse Moody’s gaze hardens. “But he’s still not allowed in like that. We gotta watch our backs, too, after all. And the backs of our patients.”

Harry feels his jaw working as words fight one another for the right to come out. He stuffs his hands in his pockets. While he’s not made a habit of gambling, he’d bet the other two heard his teeth click together when he forces himself to swallow his words.

He’s still thinking of a rebuttal when the clack of shoes on the linoleum unmistakably comes from down the hall. Turning his head slightly, the officer that gave him a difficult time last night enters Harry’s line of sight.

The policeman stops when he spots Harry. “You.”

“Me.”

“What’re you doing here?”

“Could ask you the same . . . Sir.”

“I don’t know what game you’re playing at but—”

“I was here to speak to Justin Finch-Fletchley. One of the victims I carried out last night.” Harry then waves a hand at the officer. “Your turn.”

A pink splotch appears on his neck, however his lips twitch as if he’s about to grin. “How unfortunate. They’ve just had to rush him down to Intensive Care.”

“Intensive—” As Harry’s blood pressure rises, he can feel the electricity begin to slip from his control again. “I’m afraid you still haven’t told me why you’re here . . . Sir.”

He rubs the side of his nose, picks at a scab, and flicks the head away. “Sorry, mate. Tha’s confidential.”

Harry whirls back around to the reception desk. “I’d like to visit with one of the other victims, please.”

“And I told _you_ —” Alastor Moody starts.

“Unfortunately, you won’t be able to.”

He doesn’t even turn around. “And why not, officer?”

“None of the public’s allowed in to see any of the victims of last night’s incident.”

That has Harry spinning on his heel. “Really now?”

“Yup.” The officer rocks on his feet. “Best to not keep wasting your time here. Or do. Doesn’t matter to me. But know you’re not getting in to see those patients.”

Hands twitching at his sides, Harry decides to cut his losses. “See you around, Nurse Tonks. Nurse Moody.”

“Goodbye, Izulu. Don’t be a stranger!” Tonks calls at his back.

Out in the hall, away from their lines of sight, Harry takes a moment to lean a hand against the wall. Head bowed, he attempts to gain control of himself.

Suddenly, he feels a presence at his back.

The voice comes right next to his ear. “You may strut around all of London like you’re somebody. But in the eyes of the law? Barely even a child playing dress-up.”

Harry prides himself for remaining still except for the hand braced against the wall unnoticeably clenching. He stays silent as the officer continues past him, down the hall.

He takes a little longer to collect himself this time.

As he heads out of the hospital, Harry thinks about how the cop told him one worthwhile detail—however unintentionally he may have done so. The police are stationed to watch over the survivors of the hostage situation. Which means they have reason to suspect the culprit to come after them—that it wasn’t a circumstantial kidnapping-turned-murder after all.

With renewed vigor in his step, Harry heads for the explosion site.

When he reaches the building, he stalls before the crime scene tape cordoning off the entire perimeter. Gone is the blaze and smoke creeping out of the hole blown in the side from last night. Now Harry can see the complex's charred carcass.

The hole made by the explosion is smaller than one would have thought, given the amount of smoke that had billowed out last night. It only takes up three flats in width, and, lengthwise, the damage seems contained relatively to one level of flats, with the exception of parts of the flats above and below having gotten caught up in the chaos.

From his position on the street, Harry can see almost directly into the flats affected. The front door to the complex stands wide open, and movement is visible inside.

Harry taps his foot. He hadn’t exactly counted on law enforcement crawling around this place too. He’d figured they would've already finished investigating and gathering their evidence earlier in the day—preferably before anything could be messed with or knocked askew from the exposure to the elements.

Nibbling at his thumb, he considers his options. Then, with purpose in his step, he walks alongside the CAUTION tape until he’s in one of the side alleyways. Once there, he slows down, scanning the ground with his eyes.

If the investigators are just now getting around to sweeping the flats, Harry finds it unlikely that they would've checked outside first. While plenty of clues probably exist directly at the crime scene, other hints are as likely to be just outside of it, considering the culprit had to flee somewhere.

Finding nothing in the first alleyway, Harry continues to follow the tape to the back of the building which also turns up empty of clues. Feeling much less certain about his method, Harry enters the alleyway on the opposite side of the building.

This alley is slightly wider than its counterpart, but appears just as devoid of evidence of the criminal’s escape route. Stuffing his hands in his suit’s pockets, Harry’s almost out into the street again—ready to head home with this trip as a marked failure – when some debris near the mouth of the alleyway kicks up in the breeze.

Flinging out a hand, he catches it in his grasp. The piece of black cloth is hardly larger than a coin. Looking around the immediate vicinity, Harry finds a few smaller pieces that seem to be made of the same material. If he hadn’t been looking, he would've dismissed them as regular rubbish littering the pavement.

Harry gathers together the pieces he finds, careful not to actually touch any more than the one caught in his hand. They barely amount to a handful, but, even as he sits there analyzing them, another piece flutters by his head.

Looking up in the direction of the building, if Harry squints, he can see perhaps another piece flitting out of the gaping hole. His tongue clicks on the roof of his mouth. Now there’s no telling whether these torn strips come from one of the victims, an unfortunate clothing article caught up in the blast, or the culprit as they made their escape.

Still, Harry decides to hold onto the piece he’s grabbed. While he doesn’t want to take any evidence from the scene of the crime if the detectives aren’t finished gathering what they need, he also doesn’t want to leave evidence with his fingerprints on it to add an unnecessary complication. Additionally, there’s plenty of material left for the detectives and police to find when they decide to search the perimeter of the building—and they'd also have the added benefit of knowing whether the material belongs to any of the victims. If he finds anything of note regarding the cloth, he’ll pass the information along to the appropriate people.

Harry clutches the piece he’s gathered, even as a corner of his mind tells him he’s trying to rationalize his actions. While he’s investigated crime scenes both before and after law enforcement has, he’s never done so in the midst of their examinations. But, really, it’s hardly all that different from gathering evidence while at a crime scene before law enforcement becomes involved.

As he walks down the road, contemplating which bus he should catch to Shoreditch, he eyes the cloth in his hand. It feels sturdy to the touch, but its frayed ends display its vulnerability. If this had been worn by someone while the hostage situation occurred, Harry figures that having Hermione analyze it under a microscope would reveal a bloodstain too dark to see with the naked eye on the black fabric.


	5. Chapter 5

Approximately a week later, Harry stands outside a Waterstones Bookstore in the heart of London alongside Ron, Hermione, and a long line of strangers. Brisk air cuts through the crowd, and clouds form an overcast sky.

Hermione sways excitedly, swinging her hands in front of her one minute, only to send them clasped behind her the next. “Oh, I’m so _delighted_ you both came with me!”

Ron chuckles a little. “We know, Hermione. You’ve only told us the entire morning.”

“Well, yes.” She moves a hand to tug an errant curl caught by the wind back behind her ear. “But you both so rarely ever come with me when I get books.”

Harry huffs a breath into his hands to try to warm them up a little, and he can see it rise through the cracks between his fingers. Flexing them to get the warmed blood flowing, Harry says, “To be fair, this is the first time you’ve asked us to come. Outside of academic work.”

“Don’t go giving her any ideas, mate,” Ron says.

Hermione either doesn’t hear Ron’s comment, or she’s too happy to care at the moment. “Have there been any books either of you two have been eyeing?”

“Yeah, see, the only reading I do for a hobby consists of sports mags, and we already get those in the post.”

“What about you, Harry? Have you finished the one you’re reading?” She'd gotten him hooked on mystery novels about three months ago.

“No, I’m only about halfway. But I think this author is good enough so far that I might pick up the sequel while we’re here.”

Hermione claps twice, her eyes shining. “I’m glad to hear it! I loved Galbraith’s first novel, and I’ll probably swipe the sequel off of you when you’re done with it.”

“Sounds fair to me.”

The three of them are only halfway to reaching the entryway to the store when chaos erupts. A loud _boom_ resounds through the air, and, seconds later, the ground shakes where they stand.

Ron grasps both Hermione and Harry to hold them steady. “What the bloody hell was that?”

Hermione’s gripping Ron back. “I think that came from the direction of Westminster Palace.”

The next thirty seconds consist of a silent conversation between the three of them with just glances.

Finally, Harry breathes out, “Ron and I’ll go check it out. You can stay here in line.”

Hermione bites her lip. “But—”

“It’s fine. Harry and I’ve got this. You’ve waited all week, and probably longer, for this book,” Ron says.

When Hermione looks like she’s about to protest again, Ron draws her into a hug.

“It’ll be all right,” he whispers next to her ear. “We can handle ourselves; we handle ourselves all the time alone on patrol.” He pulls back to look her in the eye. “And if we don’t come back in a reasonable amount of time, feel free to come get us.”

Harry nods and gives thumbs up when Hermione glances over at him.

“All right,” she says, not appearing happy about it. “Be careful.”

“We will,” Harry says.

He and Ron casually leave the queue and head for a café across the street.

In the loo, they lock themselves in after checking that it’s empty. Then they strip off their outer clothes, consisting of jackets, jeans, and hoodies, revealing their Supersuits underneath—Ron’s orange and black spandex, and Harry’s red and gold.

Harry takes his mask out of the hoodie pocket, and Ron retrieves his eye mask from a pocket on the inside of his jacket. A long, orange bandana with holes for his eyes, it wraps around and cover the top half of his head to tie neatly at the back of his neck, making Ron look a tad like Westley from _The Princess Bride_.

Now comes the tricky part. With great care, they work the loo window open and spring it from its hinges. Being the smaller one, Harry accepts Ron’s help lifting him through the window first. Outside, he uses his leverage to pull Ron through as well after he’s tossed their civilian clothes out to Harry. Then Harry takes the screwdriver stuffed in his jacket pocket, and he and Ron reconnect the window back into its place.

They place their clothes just at the alley’s mouth, making sure Hermione sees them from across the street before dashing off to Westminster Palace.

As they run, Harry starts sending his electricity through his system, and he feels the added boost to his legs and the added tug on his hair from the wind as it stands on end. Once powered up—and he can feel the sparks along his throat—Harry shouts to Ron, “What do you think’s—?”

“I don’t know what to think until we get there. But by the force of that mini-earthquake we felt at the bookstore, I’m betting it isn’t going to be pretty.”

Harry grimly agrees.

When Westminster Palace comes into view, people are still scattered in the streets as they try to run from whatever danger Harry and Ron are about to head towards. Harry recognizes a Member of Parliament as he dashes by the side street they came down. Without thought, he grabs the man by the sleeve. “What’s going—”

“Stay back!” The MP tries to jerk away at the accidental shock Harry gives him at his touch, and then tries even harder once he gets a look at Harry.

“Easy there, mate.” Ron lifts his hands in a calming gesture. “We’re not here to hurt you or anyone else. We’re here to help.”

His frantic eyes land on Ron. “Oh, Dewr. I didn’t see you there.” The MP stops fighting Harry’s hold—and Harry releases him once it’s clear he won’t run off—but still darts Harry side glances.

His voice sounding less friendly than a moment ago, Ron says, “As my friend Izulu was saying—can you tell us what’s going on? We want to know what we’re getting into. You know, so we can do our jobs— _as heroes_ —properly.”

Harry’s mouth twitches as he fights to remain expressionless.

“Ah-hum. Y-yes . . . yes.” Several beads of sweat glide down the side of the MP’s face as he quickly looks behind him at the Palace. “What you’re looking for is at the House of Lords. A group of villains burst through the ceiling in the midst of our session.”

“Was anyone hurt?” Harry’s voice comes out rough than he’d like.

The MP hesitates. “I-I don’t know. It was chaos in there the second they struck. Everyone just dashed for the exits.”

“What? And you lot didn’t even bother to look at the person standing next to you?” Ron’s arms are crossed, nose tilted in the air. “What if someone needed your help?”

“Ah-uh. Y-you couldn’t really expect . . . _me_ to do that? What could any normal person do in the face of-of— _Supervillains_!”

“Eh, sounds like you’re making excuses to m—”

They figure out a second too late that the House of Lords Member had meant _Supervillains_ as ‘Holy shit, one’s throwing a car right at us!’

Harry manages to shove the MP out of the way, but as a result, he and Ron don’t escape the full brunt of the car. It flings both of them off their feet as they’re propelled backwards by the force of the blow.

Winded and picking himself off the street, Harry chokes out, “Y-you . . . all right?”

“Been better.” Ron has a long cut on his back that seeps blood, and he appears scuffed in other places besides the hands and knees. “You?”

Harry has a nice cut of his own on his right arm and can feel at least one broken rib from the car’s point of impact. “Bloody brilliant.”

Ron snorts.

“So glad I didn’t knock the humor out of you.”

Harry and Ron turn to see Blaizing Fire striding toward them, his black coat billowing out behind him like a cape. The light red, skull mask painted to look ablaze glints in the afternoon sunlight as he moves, giving the painted fire a life-like appearance. He glides easily around the mangled car.

“How in the hell did you manage to throw a car at us?” Ron’s stalling—Harry knows this and tries to angle himself better.

“How?” Fire scoffs. “Only had to set the underside of it on fire at the right angle. Made a nice little explosion too. But you’d hardly notice with the fuss the common folk are m—Are you trying to attack me?!”

Harry had sent an electrical shock along the pavement that went just to the right of Blaizing Fire.

“When I’m decent enough to answer your mate’s nosy question? Honestly—”

Harry sends another shock along the street and this time hits his target.

The car Fire had attacked them with truly explodes, sending the Supervillain flying forward several meters and well over the heads of the two heroes still on the ground.

“Okay, come on.” As Harry grabs Ron’s arm and pulls him in the direction of the Palace, he reflects on how grateful he is for those two electrical blasts helping him finish warming up and taking the dull sting of the electricity thrumming through him away. Now the currents have taken hold and are flowing freely through him.

He can hear Blaizing Fire pursuing them and knows exactly when Ron’s focus shifts. Seamlessly, Harry’s grip slides down Ron’s arm until they’re holding hands. He tries to focus on what lies in front of them and reaching Westminster Palace without running into more problems. After all, Ron’s counting on him to safely guide them through the crowd of people rushing the opposite direction while Ron focuses on deadening Blaizing Fire’s powers.

 _Although,_ Harry notes, _Fire’s making himself difficult to ignore with all the obscenities he’s shouting._

Reaching the building, Harry spins around and tugs an electrical zap from one of the lamp posts nearby and strikes Blaizing Fire with it.

Fire’s knees buckle, and he collapses, lighter fluid dropping out of his hands.

Ron looks around for a guard or policeman nearby and swears. “They must all be inside.”

“I hate to leave him here like that. Don’t want him to be getting up and joining forces with the other villains.”

Ron blows out a gust of air. “Can’t be helped. No time.”

Harry nods.

They both know where they’re needed right now. The two of them are just going to have to trust that the cops and guards stationed at the Palace are ensuring tourists and other civilians in the building make it to safety.

Rushing through the halls of Parliament, they enter the House of Lords, now looking quite destitute with the amount of wreckage the room received from the villains’ attack. A gaping hole is blown through the roof, and most of the lights and the front rows of red felted seats have been additional casualties.

Harry and Ron have to duck down behind a red pew as the villain Vice-Net flings an open pair of scissors at them as they enter. They find two Members of Parliament and a guard there.

One of the MPs looks from Harry to Ron, and she whispers, “Are you here to help us?”

The other MP glances at her colleague. “Please. If they were of any use in this situation, why would they be hiding out behind here with us?”

Harry opens his mouth to retort when he suddenly finds he can’t breathe right. It’s as if his heart is being squeezed inside his chest, and he feels cold, oh so cold.

He-he’s gotta get out of here. There has to be a way out of here. The walls are closing in. Small, so small. God, is that him panting? _Can’t think, have to get out—there’s gotta be a way out—_

“Dewr!” His voice comes out in a hysterical croak.

“I know,” comes Ron’s voice from somewhere behind Harry, almost equally as pained.

Out of the corner of Harry’s eye as he twists slightly to look towards him, he sees Ron raise himself up as if pushing toward the surface from underwater. His hand lifts a second later, aiming for something beyond the pew, seemingly as equally as slow to Harry.

Just as suddenly as the panicked feeling came, it flees him. Harry gasps for breath. He has a vague sense of the other people around him doing the same.

Clenching his teeth, he braces himself and then rises above the pew as well. With perhaps more force than necessary, he rips the electricity from one of the flat-screens hanging on the upper walls and strikes Fear-Near in the torso with it.

The large man howls as he goes down. _Rather fitting of his wolf skull mask,_ Harry thinks.

He and Ron have to duck again as Vice-Net hurls more scissors, and even a pocket knife, their way. However, instead of clattering against the wall uselessly like last time, the sharp objects curve as they pass over the pew. The pair has to dodge again as the blades skewer the seating from the back.

“Damn.” The pocket knife manages to graze Harry on the leg. “Just got this all sewn up last week. Now that’s two rips.” He can tell Ron’s wincing from behind his mask just by the set of his mouth.

“We gotta subdue them faster.”

“Yeah.” Harry darts a quick look at the three people on the other side of him, now holding one another. “And preferably before we get anyone near us injured.”

Nodding to one another, he and Ron dart completely out from behind the pew. They both have their arms raised but come up short upon seeing the empty House of Lords.

Harry reflexively clenches his fist, and one of the remaining lights overhead shatters.

Sparks sprinkle down from the ceiling as the two of them have to dodge another assault from Vice-Net as he rises from behind a pew of his own, large cloaked arms lifting like a bat’s and releasing four butcher’s knives from his fingers.

Ron points to Harry and motions to the right, and then he gestures to himself and to the   left.

Harry nods his assent, and they begin their box-in approach.

The top edge of Vice-Net’s silver, identification mask is just beginning to come into view from where’s he’s crouched down when the unmistakable _clack_ ing of heels on tiled floor echo from down the corridor. Yet they don’t sound quite right.

Turning to look at the new arrival, Harry sees the stone statue of Margaret Thatcher charge into the room with her finger threateningly pointing at them just as Ron shouts his hero name. Too late, Harry feels Vice-Net’s latest attack graze his skin as a flurry of knives, this time, pins him effectively to the wall. Try as he might to tug himself free—even if it means all new tears in his costume—Harry’s as ineffective as a butterfly in an insect collection. Still, he shouts, “GarGoyle’s somewhere nearby!”

“Yeah, pretty much figured that!” Ron shouts as he dodges the Thatcher statue’s attempt to tackle him. “He’s bloody well trying to poke out my eye.”

 _How many Agency Villains are here?!_ Harry thinks with slight panic. _If Blaizing Fire were to come to before he’s placed under arrest . . . ._

Ron throws his hand up as Vice-Net rises from his position behind the pew again, pulling more sharp objects from hooks inside his cloak.

Even with his powers blocked out by Ron, Vice-Net still throws the objects in Ron’s direction. They’re not as accurate as they would be if he still had his powers, but they come close enough to Ron that he has to dodge and drop his hand.

The Thatcher statue is shifting around to face Ron again, while Vice-Net prepares another barrage of attacks, and, to top it off, Fear-Near seems to be coming around on the floor. They’re outnumbered, and Harry’s pinned.

He can feel Ron’s gaze on him, even with Ron’s mask shielding his eyes. Harry doesn’t miss the subtle shift where Ron starts to raise his hand in Harry’s direction. Feeling a spike of panic, Harry subtly shakes his head.

 _No_. No, they couldn’t resort to that. No matter how bad things may seem . . . .

Harry swallows the rising guilt when Ron lowers his arm again and focuses on the opponents in front of him. He needs to think and think fast. There’s got to be another way.

His eyes dart around the room, searching. Searching . . . .

 _If only these knives from Vice-Net weren’t—_ silverware _!_

Centering himself, Harry amps up the electrical charge coursing through his body, then channels it into the knives pressed tight against his skin.

Uncontrolled strikes of lightning zap aimlessly out into the room, and everyone standing ducks for cover.

“Oi! Watch it!” Ron’s voice seems to come from somewhere far away.

The hum of the electricity in Harry’s ears is so loud, and he’s closed his eyes at some point to try to block out the blinding light surrounding him. That’s probably why he doesn’t hear Ron again until he’s much closer to Harry than is considered safe.

“Easy, Izulu. I need you to stop now! So, I can get you down.”

Harry attempts to stem the flow of energy flowing from him. After a moment, he shouts, “I can’t!”

Ron raises his arm toward Harry.

“No! Don’t!”

“It’s all right. It’s the other one,” Ron says.

Harry’s lips press together while he watches Ron raise his hand again. He doesn’t offer a protest this time. Having his power shut off from such a high point of use feels a lot like coming to a sudden stop in a car after flooring the gas pedal.

His heart’s still pounding as Ron carefully reaches out a hand to touch the first of the knives.

Not receiving a zap, Ron commences in earnest to tug the sharp utensils from where they’re embedded in the wall. “You got Vice-Net pretty good. Must be all the metal he’s got stuffed away. Attracted a good amount of that electricity you sent out.” Ron huffs a sudden laugh. “You also managed to blast off that pointing finger from the Iron Lady.”

Harry smirks, but doesn’t try talking in his breathless state.

While Ron works on the last few troublesome knives, Harry focuses on taking in the damage he’s caused. Multiple scorch marks where the lightning struck litter the red carpeting and the seats. Vice-Net’s on the floor like Fear-Near, groaning. His mask—which resembles an open pair of scissors with the handles being the eye holes and the blades resemble a sharp mustache that extends beyond the mask itself—lies cracked on the floor beside him. All that’s left covering his face is the Venom-like under-mask.

The guard had shielded the two MPs still on the floor, and, by his twitching, Harry guesses he received a zap as well. Harry winces.

Ron looks around in the direction Harry’s facing. “Oi! What’re you three still doing here?!”

They turn to stare at him.

“Well, that’s your invitation! Get going!”

Harry’s free from the wall by the time the guard and MPs leave the room. He frowns. Something’s still not sitting quite right with him. He just can’t place his finger on it.

“Look out!” Ron shoves Harry to the side as the Thatcher statue dives from the upper level of the room.

Both he and Ron watch as it shatters against the floor where they’d just stood.

“Bloody hell. We’ve got to get on finding GarGoyle.”

Harry nods and powers up. He grits his teeth and bears through it when it feels like all his nerve endings are on fire. Perhaps the both of them had taken on more villains than they could manage.

He shoves the thought aside as the pain begins to subside. When facing the remaining villains, he’ll have to somehow get away with using much less power than he’s used to. Those knives had sucked more energy from him than he’d counted on, but that was to be expected considering it’s the first time he’s ever used that type of technique.

Ron kicks aside one of the larger stone pieces wriggling on the floor and starts scanning the pews.

Harry looks up towards the second level, but he’s not at a great angle. The light’s too blinding where it streams in from the hole in the ceiling for him to see properly up towards the roof.

The two of them walk too far apart. They get knocked off their feet by a hoard of gargoyles diving in from the hole in the roof.

Pounded at by the beaks and claws of the stone beasts freed from the parapets, Harry starts sending useless shocks at the ones attacking him while he tries to glimpse Ron dealing with his own swarm. Harry knows that without being able to pinpoint GarGoyle, Ron is defenseless with his power set against the stone beasts.

Locating one of the remaining television screens hanging on the wall, he yanks down enough electricity to blast to pieces several of the gargoyles attacking Ron. “Run for outside!”

Ron doesn’t wait around to be told twice, and Harry’s right on his heels, ducking as the two groups of gargoyles form into one that dives for them both as they bolt out the door. They both take the stairs two at a time, breath rushing in their ears.

It’s only when they reach the first floor of the building that they take a moment to look around.

“I— _huff_ —don’t— _ha_ —think they followed us.” Ron’s right. The corridor behind them remains empty.

After Harry catches his breath, he says, “Let’s head outside anyway. Most of the people have managed to evacuate. No need to stay closed in like this.”

“You’re right on that one. I don’t think we can handle these villains on our own anymore.”

They walk outside to a deserted street. Even Blaizing Fire’s gone.

“That can’t be good,” Harry says, gesturing to the spot where they’d left the villain unconscious.

“Well, he didn’t come in after us to help his mates, did he?” Ron scratches his chin. “Maybe a policeman got him.”

“Maybe.” Harry still looks around just in case.

“Say, how d’you reckon GarGoyle got those things to fly? Those rain spouts barely have any wings at all, from what I remember of them. Or at least _stone wings_ shouldn’t allow flight at all.”

Harry shrugs. He’s too tired to really think about it.

“C’mon, Izulu! It doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, if that’s how you’re thinking about it, Vice-Net shouldn’t have been able to curve the blades like that. But he did.”

Ron grumbles a bit while they walk out into the street. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s see if we can find law enforcement around to take the villains inside into custody.”

They stop walking when they hear the sound of hooves galloping on the cobblestone. Looking in the direction of the sound, they see Richard the Lionheart statue racing toward them with sword raised.

“Move!” Harry yells the same time that Ron shouts, “Shit!”

They dive out of the way of the horse as it charges them, and the blade just skims the top of Harry’s hair.

“Where is he?!” Ron shouts as the horse slows its momentum so it can turn around and charge them again. “Where’s that bastard hiding?!”

Both their heads snap around toward the Palace of Westminster as the flock of gargoyles rise out of the hole the villains entered through and start an arching wave of hell towards them.

If Harry squints, he can sort of make out what appears to be two figures on the roof. As he strategizes how to dodge the incoming attack from the horse and the flock of flying demons, he nudges Ron. “The roof!”

“Yeah, I know!” Ron raises an arm. “S’just—we’re toast if I guess wrong.”

Harry sends a zap at the legs of the charging horse. “Just do it!”

Harry’s not watching Ron, and the horse keeps heading towards them, Harry’s attack too weak to cause harm. _He must have guessed wrong._

Suddenly, the noise of stone bashing against stone permeates the air a thousand times over. Harry darts a glance toward the Palace again to see the last of the stone gargoyles crash into the concrete as the source of their flight loses its power. He relaxes. “Great job, De—”

The horse crashes right into Harry, and Richard adds another slice along Ron’s back with his sword.

“What the _fuck_!” Ron stumbles to his hands and knees.

“I thought you got him!” Harry picks his head up from the ground.

“Yeah, I did too.”

“Then why the hell did the gargoyles crash but that thing’s still moving?”

They both dash toward the Palace to investigate as well as dodge another blow from Richard. Upon reaching the first smashed gargoyle, Harry and Ron wonder no longer.

A cluster of crushed paper birds lie under the remains of the broken stone statue.

“Looks like your little friend survived.”

“We’re not friends.” Still, the way he feels much lighter is undeniable to Harry.

“I’m aiming for the other one.” Ron raises his arm.

Richard and his horse stop where they are and fall over, pieces breaking off as the statue strikes the ground.

Ron still has his hand trained on GarGoyle, even as the villain and Paper Dracon descend from the rooftop on a large paper swan.

As GarGoyle and Paper Dracon dismount from the swan’s back, Harry can’t bite his tongue fast enough. “Feeling better, I see.”

“Piss off, hero.” There’s still something off about Paper Dracon, but Harry can’t quite place it.

Lord, he’s so tired he can’t think straight. By the sound of Ron’s laboured breathing next to him, Harry’s willing to bet he’s just as exhausted. They can’t deal with two more Supervillains. But running away would leave them too vulnerable.

He wonders how long they’ve been going at it.

Ron’s arm starts to shake where he holds it aloft, and he brings up his other hand to brace it against the strain.

“Looks like your mate there’s about to give out.” Dracon’s voice becomes malicious. “Then what will you do?”

Harry bites the inside of his cheek and fights off the helpless feeling rising in his gut. “Stop you, of course.”

GarGoyle barks out a laugh.

“Oh, ‘of course.’” Dracon stuffs his hands into the pockets at his hips. “How could I expect anything else?” He pulls his hands from the pockets and out flies a pair of paper hummingbirds.

As they dive for Harry and Ron, Harry attempts to shoot them with some of his lightning. Yet the birds remain as dexterous as their living forms, dodging each of Harry’s strikes with ease. Although, to be fair, Harry’s aim has never been that great with his own electrical energy. Still, he feels like he’s failed some kind of test when the birds reach him and Ron, driving sharp scrapes into the exposed skin on their faces.

Ron’s arms drop for a second as he cries out, then rise up again to swat at the bird buzzing about his head.

Through the rushing blood in his ears, Harry can hear Dracon and GarGoyle laughing. Frustrated, Harry sends a bolt the villains’ way, and it misses by several meters to the right.

Yet that frustration drops into his stomach and curdles there into fear as he sees Fear-Near and Vice-Net stumble outside of the Palace’s hall. Then, to top things off, he hears the unmistakable grinding sound of GarGoyle taking full advantage of Ron’s distracted state.

The world starts to shimmer before him, and the ground beneath his feet seems distorted. _Am I about to faint?_

But the villains start to mumble and shout in alarm too.

It only clicks for Harry when the air surrounding them all turns hazy, yet all the people continue standing out in stark relief.

“Honestly,” comes a voice just beyond the growing fog, “what would you boys do without me?”

The moisture from the mist seeps into the paper birds flitting around Harry and Ron.

Ron’s hummingbird drops to the ground as a soggy mess, first. “Die, probably.”

Harry laughs because it’s true. “So, you got your book, then?” He asks as Hermione—dressed in her violet, full-body spandex costume with a giant _H_ embroidered in gold on the front—slides up beside them. Well, she appeared suddenly more than slid into the mist, meaning to Harry that she had likely been there the entire time—she’d just written herself unnoticeable.

Hermione hums lightly. “No. But you two were gone too long.”

“Really? How long?” Ron asks.

“Nearly an hour.”

“You waited in line an hour and still didn’t get your book?”

She readjusts her gold _Colombina_ mask and nods.

“What the bloody hell were all those people doing in the front of the line?!”

“Doesn’t matter now.” Hermione shrugs and appears to focus on the villains before them. “Cover for me.”

Harry and Ron shift to block Hermione from the villains’ view as she brandishes a leather-bound book and a worn blue pen. She places the tip onto the page and begins to write where she left off.

Leave it to Hermione to discover she has better command over the results of her abilities by writing down the changes to reality she wants and aiming her hand at the page, rather than waving her hands around her, thinking of the vague changes she wants, and getting mixed outcomes. The results have been a marked improvement since Harry and Ron first met her taking on a base of Agency Villains by herself years ago. But even then, her Control over Reality had been a rough power to combat.

The villains have overcome their confusion and seem to be regrouping.

Harry can feel the sweat sliding down his face underneath his mask. But with Hermione here, they might be able to hold out.

“Dewr!”

“Yeah, I know.” Ron trains his one hand on Vice-Net as he goes to throw whatever knives he’d managed to collect from the scuffle inside the Palace, deadening his powers. Then Ron lifts his other hand in Hermione’s direction, just as the last millimeter of space gets used up on the page.

The ground shakes violently, but the three heroes stand like the earthquake rocking the villains to their knees isn’t even there. Vice-Net’s sharp objects melt in his hands, and the rest decorating the inside of his suit plop onto the street in pools of molten metal. Paper Dracon’s forced to let go of the origami birds he’d pulled from his pockets as they catch alight. GarGoyle’s new army of stone statues can be heard prowling just outside the impenetrable barrier Hermione has formed. Fear-Near appears most affected out of all the villains by the quake as he collapses onto all fours to steady himself.

But that’s not all that Hermione’s page of words has provided. Little jolts of electricity jump through the moisturized air, easy enough for Harry to just reach out and grab hold of them with his power should he have the need. He feels his tensed shoulders relax at not having to expend much more energy from his own body.

With confidence providing new life to his tired step, Harry strides towards the Supervillains. “Are you lot ready to surrender?”

All of them appear too caught up in their individual struggles not to fall completely to the ground.

As Harry takes another cautious step towards them, his attention gets dragged to Paper Dracon when he cries out and collapses. Looking at the odd angle Dracon holds himself, Harry suddenly realizes what seemed off about him earlier. “Your leg . . . . It’s broken?”

Dracon’s only answer is a whine of pain that sounds like it fights its way out of him.

That would explain why Dracon’s bearing at the beginning of the fight had been different. He’d been favoring one leg, and neither Harry nor Ron could tell from such a distance. Peering closer at the Supervillain, Harry receives another shock. “You still have your other injuries.”

Not even Dracon’s suit had been repaired.

“What the hell are you doing out on a battlefield?”

Paper Dracon’s strained laugh comes out bitter. “I-if I didn’t—eheh—know any better, I’d— _ha_ —say you almost sound c-con _cerned_ , hero.”

Well, Harry _is_ concerned. But he doesn’t kid himself about the dangers of revealing that to an enemy. “We’d never send one of ours out in your condition.”

Dracon snorts—and some of his cohorts join in, startling Harry who’d forgotten they were there. “Then I guess you c-can s-s- _say_ our worlds run a little differently.”

Harry says nothing and continues looking at him through his mask.

The villain’s head lolls back on his shoulders. “A useless villain makes for a dead pawn.”

Something twists in Harry’s gut, but he should have learned by now that distraction this close to an enemy is a deadly mistake. He’s not prepared for the flurry of little paper cranes Dracon sends his way, and Harry’s close enough that when they catch on fire, he still has to work to dodge the flames.

As Harry stumbles backwards, an explosion echoes outside the barrier. He pulls some of the lightning Hermione created to himself, sending a small shock to Dracon’s hand when he goes to release more paper puppets. _Doesn’t matter if he’s injured; he’s still a threat._ Still, it’s not quite enough to tamp down his guilt at the yelp Dracon makes.

The heroes’ attention shifts to the left as Hermione’s carefully constructed haze barrier blows away due to another barrage of explosions. _Damn_. They’d forgotten completely about Blaizing Fire.

Small embers dot one of Fire’s sleeves as he beckons to his comrades. “C’mon! More heroes are on the way!”

Harry sends a lightning strike at Blaizing Fire, but the villain only uses the energy to create a fire shield that cuts the heroes off from the other Supervillains.

“But what about—” One of the villains starts to say. It may be GarGoyle.

“We have what we came for. Now move!” Fire states.

The smoke from the flames Blaizing Fire created mixes with the last vestiges of Hermione’s haze barrier, making it impossible to see. But they can hear the scrambling footsteps on the other side of the fire wall.

“Harmony!”  Ron’s voice sounds rough from inhaling the tainted air as he shouts Hermione’s hero name. “They’re getting away!”

“I know!” Hermione’s voice sounds further away than it should. Suddenly, both the fog and smoke blow away with a harsh wind.

When Harry looks around, Hermione is several meters behind them. She must have not been able to see properly and moved just outside the barrier to banish it.

The villains are nowhere to be found.

Nails biting into his hands through the gloves, Harry starts marching in the direction he thinks they would have headed. “They can’t have got that far! Come on, guys.”

“We don’t know where they headed off to, mate.”

“Yes, and, Ha—Izulu, we can’t just leave right now.” Hermione gestures to the Palace. “For all we know, there’s more people trapped inside that haven’t gotten out.”

“But we’ve injured almost all of them! Do you really think they all managed to get far in the state we left them in?”

Hermione places her hands on her hips. “And how do you plan to catch up to them? You’re nearly just as bad off! Or have all your wounds not registered in your brain yet?”

The long cut on his arm and the scratches from Vice-Net’s knives did sting severely; an indescribable ache creeps into Harry’s bones. He sits down on the cobblestone but refuses to acknowledge Hermione’s right. She knows she’s right regardless.

After spending some minutes regrouping, the three of them re-enter the building, searching all floors for people not yet evacuated. With Harry using his power to locate any sparks of life in the building, they find the remaining people relatively quickly. In the public tourist section, they find a roomful of people who had barricaded the door; they took some serious coaxing before believing it was safe to leave. Other than that, only two other people were found in their entire sweep of the Palace, all relatively unharmed.

When the three heroes exit the building, they come face to face with multiple police units, some ambulances, and Alpha Bee himself. Hermione, being the least exhausted of the group, takes the lead to meet them head on, Harry and Ron trailing her.

Alpha Bee smiles wide and holds his arms out to them—out of all the people here to meet them, he looks the friendliest. “Ah, good work. Good work, you three!”

Harry’s brain feels like his thoughts are swimming in honey, but when one finally breaks to the surface, his head snaps up to really take in the folks surrounding them. “Hang on—where have you all _been_?!”

Alpha Bee, who keeps his mask a simple felt one that wraps around his eyes like a headband, blinks at Harry. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get a little more specific than that, my boy.”

He gestures at the gathered adults. “The police? The ambulances? The rest of the Hero Order? We’ve been on our own for over an _hour_.”

“Ah! Yes, and you all did so well, too.”

The weariness rises again inside him, along with a headache, threatening to pull Harry under. He powers through the urge by sheer will. “So many people have been hurt. Who knows who could have died? Why did you leave us on our _own_?” His voice cracks at the end. Harry convinces himself it’s the exhaustion.

“My dear Izulu,” Alpha Bee says as he places a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “We knew some heroes had responded to the situation. Seeing as it was a Supervillain attack, the emergency vehicles had thought it best to leave the fight to those that could match the enemy’s power. Instead, they hung back, and formed a wide perimeter around the outskirts of the Palace to intercept any of the people who managed to flee or were freed by the heroes who took action.”

“That still doesn’t explain why the Hero Order didn’t give us backup.” Ron’s arms cross his chest.

Sighing, Alpha Bee tugs on his long, white beard. “We had faith in the three of you to handle the situation. You’re all adept at working well with one another. But we also didn’t want to leave the people forming the perimeter to get surprised by a Supervillain deciding to run from the fight. What heroes we had on call, we sent to enforce the border.”

“And did you catch any?” Hermione’s eyelids keep fluttering behind her mask like they want to remain closed. “Of the villains, I mean. They did end up running away.”

Gaining a second wind, Alpha Bee bounces on the balls of his feet and steeples his fingers below his chin. “I’m glad you asked, Harmony. Batshee and Moondrop picked one off as the villains attempted to fly over the barrier on giant paper swans.”

Harry’s exhaustion disappears, and his heart rate spikes. “We captured one?”

“Yes, my boy.”

His mind races. _What are the chances it’s . . . ._ “When do we interrogate him about the incident?”

Alpha Bee chuckles. “There’s that youthful spirit. I was worried the long day knocked it out of you.” He tugs on his beard again. “Hmm . . . Well, you’ll have to help file the police report—telling the officers all you know about the incident today. Then, I imagine, the three of you will want to get some rest after your hard work.”

“And a bubble bath,” Hermione mumbles.

But Harry surges forward and grabs onto Alpha Bee’s star-covered coat. “Please, don’t interrogate him without us.” He sucks in a breath. “Whoever he is, we worked just as hard to bring about his capture. We’re owed an explanation for why we had to fight all those villains today.”

Placing a gentle hand on one of Harry’s arms, Apha Bee’s face turns serious even as parts of his beard begin to rise up from electricity. “All right, Izulu. We’ll hold off on that until the three of you are well rested.” The ease comes back into his mouth and eyes. “Now go tell the police what you know.”


	6. Chapter 6

Harry’s heart pounds behind his ribcage as he stands just outside the interrogation room in the Hero Order’s main base. The Supervillain captured yesterday resides just on the other side.

“D’you reckon it’s smart to bring a Supervillain into the very heart of our operations?” Ron leans on the wall next to the door, leg propped up against its vertical surface.

Harry shrugs. Despite taking a long rest after coming home yesterday, his suit feels particularly heavy on his sore body.

“Well, I heard they brought him in while he was still unconscious,” Hermione says from Harry’s other side. “So, it’s doubtful he even knows what part of London he’s in.”

“I still don’t like it,” Ron says

Sighing, Harry says, “I don’t think it matters if we like it or not.”

Another ten minutes pass before Alpha Bee meets them in the corridor. “I trust you all slept well?”

They all give their confirmation.

“But answering law enforcement’s questions were hell.” Ron pipes up. “You’d think _we_ were under interrogation. And they wanted to keep Her— _Harmony_ and  Izulu for extra questioning!”

“Is that so?” Alpha Bee twirls a finger in the white beard. “And what did you do?”

“Told them we already gave them all the info we had. Plus, I pointed out that Harmony hadn’t even been at the scene for as long as Izulu or I had. There was at least no reason to keep her!”

“They let you go, I trust?”

Harry snorts. “If only because they still had the other witnesses to get to. Lots of civilian victims to tell their side of the events.”

Alpha Bee hums and casts his eyes toward a light above them. “Before we head in to talk with our guest, I believe I should show you what we confiscated off his person.”

The three of them follow Alpha Bee to the chamber adjacent to the interrogation room. This room has a one-way stretch of glass, and they can see into the interrogation room where the prisoner sits immobile at a table.

He only wears his under-mask; the identification mask clearly having been stripped from him. Also stripped from him is his costume—swapped out for plain white clothes.

Harry’s hands itch. He squeezes them into fists and tears his gaze away from the figure—back toward Alpha Bee, who is lifting a folder from its place on the counter that stretches the length of the glass.

Holding the folder out to the three young heroes, Alpha Bee patiently waits until Hermione grabs it before speaking. “What you have in your hands is quite delicate information. Rather deadly, I’m afraid, in the wrong set of hands.”  He folds his arms behind his back and watches Hermione open the folder.

Harry and Ron peek over her shoulder as she sifts through the contents. But the first page they see tells them all they need to know. All three of them draw in sharp breaths.

Hermione’s voice wavers.  “Heroes’ identities.”

“Bloody hell,” Ron says. “That’s why they broke into the House of Lords?”

“Every official hero has had to register with them—Look! Here’s _my_ paperwork! And Har-Izulu’s. And—”

“Give me that!” Ron snatches the whole stack when they come across Ginny’s paperwork. Ron’s slides out onto the floor in his haste; Hermione bends to pick it back up.

Harry’s voice cracks the first time he opens his mouth to use it, so he tries again. “Did we get them all back? Or are there files missing?”

Stroking his beard, Alpha Bee remains silent for a moment. “Hard to say. We may be called the Hero Order, but it’s doubtful we know all the heroes registered in the city—and especially the heroes outside London.”

“Oh!” Hermione’s hand lifts to her mouth. “I’d forgotten. Westminster would have _all_ official Superheroes in Britain in their records.” She looks back at the file, fingering its pages. “This is way too thin . . . .”

“Yes, I thought so.” Alpha Bee pushes himself onto the counter and folds his hands into his lap. “And if you look through, you’ll notice most of the people listed are new heroes. The younger generation.”

“Meaning you’re not here, sir,” Harry says, “if the villains have most of the older pro-heroes’ files.”

“Correct.” He twiddles his thumbs and kicks his legs in the air.

Ron’s fist clenches. “Then we’ll just have to find out what they’re planning.” He storms out the door to the corridor.

Harry goes to follow him but stops just outside when he hears Hermione ask Alpha Bee what will be done with the file they’ve recovered.

Alpha Bee says, “Hold onto it, of course. Westminster has already proven unsafe for this type of information. And especially until we know why the villains had risked so much to steal it.”

Harry turns his head back toward the room as Hermione speaks. “Isn’t it obvious why they wanted them? Heroes and Villains are enemies. Knowing the true identities of your enemy is an advantage anyone would want.”

He leaves before he hears any more. The point of the matter isn’t why the villains want the heroes’ identities, but rather _why now_. They’ve been going at it for upwards of three years against London’s villains; yet they’re supposed to believe that their enemies have just now realized the heroes have had to have gone on record to be in accordance with the law? Unlikely.

When Harry reaches the door to the interrogation room, Ron’s got his hand on the handle and is staring it down in frustration. Harry cocks a brow. “Forgot how to turn a knob?”

“Shut up, Harry.” Ron’s grip tightens. “It’s locked.”

“O-oh.” Harry doesn’t quite succeed in muffling his laugh and pays for it with a glare from Ron. “Yeah, they’d probably have it locked, considering who we’ve got in there.”

“Yeah? And who’ve we got in there, then?”

Harry opens his mouth, then shuts it a moment. “. . . A Supervillain.”

Now Ron’s snorting into his shoulder. “Okay, yeah, a Supervillain. But they’ve stripped him of his suit.” His mouth takes a serious turn. “Though, I suppose, depending on who it is . . . he may still be dangerous.”

Humming in a noncommitting way, Harry waits with Ron for Hermione and Alpha Bee to show up to unlock the door. Five minutes seem to pass before they arrive, Alpha Bee pulling a key ring from his starred coat.

He counts the keys until he finds the right one and stuffs it in the door. “Now remember, we want to find out what this gentleman knows. So, no letting emotions cloud our judgment.”

Harry and Hermione nod, and Ron mumbles a reluctant, “Right.”

The door swings open, and Harry’s somehow the last one inside. Everyone except Ron seems to be giving the villain enough space. Both Alpha Bee and Hermione stand against the walls, facing the desk, while Ron leans his hands against it. The door closes behind Harry with an audible _click_. He hopes they’re not somehow locked inside.

“So,” Alpha Bee says, steepling his fingers below his chin, “would you care to tell us what your favorite brand of tea is?”

Ron jolts backwards from where he’s glaring a hole into the villain’s under-mask. “What? I thought we were going to ask him what the hell he and his mates were doing yesterday?!”

Harry has to agree, and, from the way the Supervillain drew back in his chair after having not moved a millimeter since Harry’d first laid eyes on him, he also feels floored by the request.

“It’s good to be courteous if we expect curtesy in return.” Alpha Bee has not removed his gaze from their prisoner.

Grumbling, Ron falls back next to Harry, who still stands by the door.

The Supervillain remains silent but keeps his new position, leaning against the back of the chair.

“Not fond of tea? That’s all right.” Alpha Bee gestures to Hermione who already has her notebook out. A chair materializes on the opposite end of the table, in front of Alpha Bee. He takes it and sits down across from the prisoner. “Dewr is right. We’d all quite like to know what you hoped to accomplish yesterday.”

Their prisoner keeps his silence and his stillness. The only indication he even lives are the sounds of subtle breaths he takes.

Harry feels the indescribable itch return to his fingertips, and he knows it has nothing to do with the electricity surging through him. _Just to be able to reach out, grab the end of that under-mask and . . ._

He yanks his mind away from that line of thought. No matter how tempting it may seem to gain any kind of reaction from their enemy right now, they can’t—or rather, _he_ can’t—do something like that and still claim to be on the side of justice. Even if this is a villain, Harry can’t seem to shake the spark of shame that mingles with the excitement and anticipation at the idea of seeing the face behind the mask. Even if, by chance, the Supervillain before them is Paper Dracon.

Refocusing back on the conversation, Harry realizes he’s been lost in thought for more time than he’d thought. Alpha Bee’s in the middle of saying something to the Supervillain. “—and I know you’re probably very concerned. Being at the mercy of one’s enemy is hardly a comfortable position for anyone. So, it’s best you just tell us what you know.”

Everyone jumps a little when the villain snorts, a deep chuckle rising from the depths of his chest. “Really, now?” Blaizing Fire’s voice comes from the Supervillain. “Well, only if you answer mine. Why are you wasting your time interrogating me about what you already know?” His cuffed, gloved hands lift and stroke the tabletop, and his voice drops an octave. “Your lot did confiscate the file from me.”

Ron makes to rush the table, but Harry catches hold of his sleeve, remembering to lower his voltage upon doing so to prevent Ron from shocked.

Alpha Bee doesn’t move.  “Ah, so you value honesty?”

“Hardly,” Ron snarls.

“Then how about you tell us why you stole Superheroes’ identities from the government.” Hermione speaks this time, arms across her chest.

“Why?” Blaizing Fire still sounds amused. “We’re enemies. What other reason could there be?”

“Stop playing coy.” Ron nearly tears himself from Harry’s grip, and Harry nearly lets him. “You know what we’re asking.”

He shrugs. “Any edge we can get is a good one.”

Ron growls deep in his chest, and Harry yanks him backwards.

Harry strides forward. “We mean, why all of a sudden? They’ve existed in Westminster for years.”

“Would you believe me if I said we finally stopped paying taxes, too, and decided we might as well go all in?”

Harry goes to dig his nails into the table, but his gloved hands just slide uselessly against the surface.

“I suggest you stop whatever game you’re playing at,” Hermione says. “You’re forgetting who has the power here to make your stay uncomfortable.”

“Oh, like I’m going to take a threat from heroes seriously. What my lot would do to me if I said anything’s guaranteed to be worse.”

“Yeah?” Without Harry keeping him at bay, Ron comes within ten centimeters of Blaizing Fire’s masked face. “Want to elaborate on that?”

By the tensing of Fire’s shoulders, he knows he let information unwittingly slip. Unfortunately for the heroes, this means that he holds his tongue again for a good hour, regardless of what they say around him.

As they start to creep into the next half hour mark, Ron suddenly grows eerily calm. He taps a finger against the tabletop, staring down Blaizing Fire through both their masks. “You know what I think we should do?”

Alpha Bee turns a patient gaze onto him. “What would that be?”

“I say, since they’re all so keen to know our identities, we might as well get our shot at knowing theirs.”

One time, Harry had volunteered at a local fair to sit in the dunk tank; the people throwing only got him once. But once in the icy water was enough to nearly send him into shock as he was suddenly submerged. As Harry stands there in the interrogation room, looking at his best friend, he feels just as he did when the water closed over the top of his head. What makes this time all the worse is that Alpha Bee and Hermione seem to consider it.

Harry doesn’t miss the new, stiff way Blazing Fire holds himself or the subtle way he takes his hands from the desk top to curl into fists in his lap.

Ron doesn’t miss it either as he smirks. “Don’t like it much when the shoe’s on the other foot, huh?”

Blaizing Fire holds himself still but flinches away when Ron reaches for his mask.

“Stop!” Harry speaks before he’s aware he planned to.

Everyone in the room sets their gazes upon him with a turn of their heads—even Blaizing Fire, whose faster breathing lets everyone know he’s given up the pretense of being calm.

“Why, Ha-Izulu?” Ron doesn’t move his hand away from the Supervillain’s face. “They’re perfectly fine with using every hero’s identity against them for some twisted plot of theirs. The least we can get in return would be one Supervillain’s identity.”

“Yes, while I’m not truly happy about it,” Hermione says as she twirls a curl in her fingers, “it’s at least some lead we can go off from.”

“Well, Izulu?” Alpha Bee hasn’t stopped facing the direction of the villain.

Harry bites the inside of his cheek, and then lets out a sigh as he lightly rakes a hand across his hair. “Don’t you think I want to know, too? Yeah, they took a lot of heroes’ true identities, and are planning who knows what with them. But . . . it’s just—it’s wrong to just tear off someone’s mask like that. I’d feel wrong. It’d be breaking the Super Code.”

“Well, they already broke the Code!” Ron says.

“Doesn’t mean we have to!” Harry didn’t mean to shout; it just came out that way. In a quieter voice, he says, “We’re heroes, right? We follow what’s right, even when it’s not easy.”

Ron’s hand drops a fraction. “But, if it means we’ll be able to know more about the Villain Agency, we might learn more about what they’re up to . . . .”

“Can you really guarantee that, though? Yeah, say we get a look under his mask? A name doesn’t come attached with it. Then we’ll be focusing our energy on tracking down his name and address instead of what we should really be spending our time hunting down.” He looks around at his deflating teammates. “Besides, I’d still like to look the other heroes in the eye when we get their information back. And my own in the mirror.”

Ron’s arm slumps at his side. “All right, then.”

Blaizing Fire has a curious tilt to his head, and Harry pushes away the sensation that he’s being studied.

They all flinch when Alpha Bee claps his hands. “Well, I suppose that’s enough for today. I don’t think we’ll be getting anything more from this session. How do you all feel about fish and chips for lunch?”

Hermione and Ron reluctantly assent to the proposal, and Harry nods, not caring what’s for lunch.

“Excellent.” Alpha Bee ushers Hermione and Ron out the door. “Some other heroes will come in a little later to return you to your holding cell, Mr. Fire.”

Blaizing Fire jerks his head away from where he’s continued to bore a hole into Harry’s head, ruffled at being addressed in such a manner. “Pardon?”

“You heard me,” Alpha Bee calls from the corridor. “Come along, Izulu. Time to give our guest a break.”

Harry turns to go, but whips around at the jangle of handcuffs, the scrape of a chair, and a hoarse, “Wait!”

Blaizing Fire slumps back in his chair, and Harry sees for the first time that his ankles are bound together too. The villain sits there, huffing like he’d been forced to lift a car—without the help of explosives.

Harry stands there for a minute before heading for the door again.

“. . . Thanks.” It’s whispered so quietly, Harry nearly misses it.

He shifts his head so that he can see Fire out of his periphery. “For what? Following the Code?”

Silence answers him.

He’s nearly out into the corridor when “Kensington, 8:00pm” follows him out on a breath of air.

The door slams behind him.

 

~~*~~

 

Harry’s never liked being in Kensington when it’s light out, let alone when it’s dark. Too many paranoid ritzy white women have phoned the cops on “that suspicious black chav” strutting around the neighborhood. While his reputation has improved some in other areas of London, walking the Kensington streets feels like the early days.  After all, he hasn’t been daft enough to patrol here since a year ago when one person had claimed he was there to scout out the neighborhood and loot the houses when people weren’t home. Hermione’s also had her incidents here and in Chelsea, but never tells Ron or Harry about it when they ask.

This is Ron’s territory exclusively now for over a year, and Harry tries to feel confident with him at his side. Ron certainly walks like he has nothing to fear in these streets, the same way Harry‘s come to feel in Shoreditch. Hands behind his head, Ron slants a look Harry’s way. “So what d’you think Fire meant exactly? You reckon it’s a rendezvous point or some kind of ambush?”

Harry shrugs. “Dunno.” They pass under a streetlamp, the orange stripes of Ron’s suit looking faded and the red tint on the mask Harry wears dimly dancing like fire in the dull lighting. “But that’s why I brought you. And in case it’s the latter, that’s why Hermione and the others are on standby.”

Movement near Ron’s head suggests he nods as they enter a particularly shadowed region of the street. “Yeah, I suppose. So, do you plan to power up when we’re close?”

“Would have to know a specific location to do that.”

“Then how do you plan to be ready in case it _is_ an ambush?”

“If it's an ambush, we’re best off having the best kind of stealth possible. Me shining like a lighthouse will hardly provide that.”

“I suppose. But I still don’t like the idea you’re leaving yourself open to attack.”

“Eh . . . All of this is a risk. Plus, if it’s not an ambush, being powered up would be a dead giveaway that I’m not who I’m dressed as.”

They continue their search in silence for a while. Finally, Ron asks, “Where exactly do you think it is?”

 _“_ Not sure. But if it’s remotely what we suspect it to be, it’ll find us.”

Ron grumbles beside Harry. “Wasn’t so helpful, that bloke, was he? For all we know, we’re chasing geese.”

“How ‘bout we call it quits if we continue wandering around without finding anything after another half hour?”

Roughly ten minutes later, he and Ron get split up when Ron has to handle a drunk driver that nearly smashes through a family’s sitting room. At first, they both thought that this was the event they had been waiting for, but it soon became clear it had been a regular DUI case. Harry tells Ron to handle the incident and that he’d be fine on his own for a while.

Standing in the wreckage, Ron had seemed unsure. But Harry had waved off his concern and allowed him to be swallowed up by the family’s demands for attention from “Dewr of Good Deeds.”

Now, as he walks the streets of Kensington alone, Harry finds he’s trying to convince himself he’s made the right decision. Much like the incident earlier that morning where he’d prevented Blaizing Fire’s identity from being revealed, Harry’s having some serious doubts about his choices recently.

 _Was one villain’s true identity worth the hundreds of heroes about to lose theirs?_ Maybe _he’s_ the one who’s lost the plot. Did it really matter in the long run that Fire had given him some sort of lead in return if this lead turns into nothing but a dud?

He stops walking under a streetlamp and looks at his hands. The gloves don’t belong to him. Neither does the costume he wears, nor the two masks placed over-top his head. All of it, apart from the under-mask, belongs to Blaizing Fire. Hermione only had to duplicate the look of the under-mask, since Harry was free to wear the red skull identification mask without compromising Fire’s privacy. He did, however, leave Fire’s matches, lighter, and lighter fluid back at the base.

Harry nearly jumps out of his skin when a voice comes from the rooftop of the deli next to him. “Where’ve you been, Blaise? Been looking for you for nearly forty-five minutes.”

 _Is that their nickname for Blaizing Fire?_ Looking up, it’s hard for Harry to make the figure out on the roof from the glare of the streetlamp. But, like with Blaizing Fire, Harry would recognize that voice anywhere.

Paper Dracon hops down from the roof, a dozen paper cranes lightening his fall. He limps toward Harry, stopping just before reaching the lamplight. “Bit quiet this evening.”

Harry just stops himself from shrugging. Thinking back to Fire’s mannerisms from the interrogation room, Harry tilts his chin in that challenging way. Too late does he realize Fire probably acts much differently around his mates. Hell, Fire acts differently with Harry, Ron, and Hermione when they face off in battle. And he speaks _—_ which Harry cannot do without revealing he’s not who he’s portraying.

Dracon cocks his head. “Little odd for you.”

Harry sweats.

After an eternity, Paper Dracon shrugs it off and waves a beckoning hand at Harry. “Well, come on then.”

Hardly believing his luck, Harry falls into step with Dracon. Their walk is mostly silent, and Harry finds himself having to slow down a few times to keep pace with the villain’s limping speed.

At a cross section, Paper Dracon gestures to a pitch-dark alleyway.

Harry tries to contain his excitement as he follows Dracon in. _Is this where—_

His thoughts choke off as Paper Dracon pins him to the alley wall by his throat.

A voice hisses next to his ear. “I don’t know what kind of fool you take me for, but you better tell me who the bloody hell you are before it gets a little messy back here.”

Harry’s frozen in his surprise. _And why the hell am I surprised?_

But that works out fine, since Dracon’s not done talking. “Blaizing Fire may be stupid sometimes, but not even he would just stand there under a streetlight for anyone to see. Like some kind of amateur.”

 _Amateur?_ Feeling his anger melt away his astonishment, Harry powers up and lets loose a shock that has Dracon inhaling a sharp breath and releasing Harry.

“ _You_ ,” Dracon says.

“Me,” Harry says in return. He takes off the fiery skull mask since he doesn’t like the sound his electricity’s making against its surface.

The villain straightens the best he can before Harry with his broken leg. “So, he was captured, then?”

“Yup. As well as what he stole.”

“Ah—I see. Well, if you think you’re going to ca—”

Harry surges forward and wraps a gloved hand around Dracon’s raised fist. “No, you don’t.”

Releasing a hiss of surprise at the light zap he receives at the initial contact—after all, Harry may have attempted to reel in his powers, but Blaizing Fire’s gloves were never made to contain Harry’s electricity—Dracon tenses. This close, their masks are mere millimeters apart. “Clever, hero. You’ve finally been able to prevent one of my attacks. You _can_ learn,” he says with a sneering tone.

Harry would feel the sting of the insults had Dracon’s laboured breathing not tipped Harry off to how much the Supervillain probably isn’t up to fighting right now. Instead, with more measured grace than Harry thought he’d have this close to an enemy, Harry says, “You’re going to tell me what you’re plotting with those hero identities.”

Paper Dracon laughs in that wicked way that worms its way under Harry’s skin. “What? That’s all? Your big idea after torturing the rendezvous point out of Blaizing Fire is to just _ask_ what we’re planning? Do you know nothing about use of leverage, hero?”

 Once it gets through to Harry what he’d said about Blaizing Fire, he lets go of Dracon’s hand.

Making a triumphant sound, Dracon moves to release the origami piece in his fist, when Harry says, “What do you mean? ‘After torturing’ Fire?”

Paper Dracon’s hand freezes in the air. “What do you mean by ‘what do I mean’?”

An odd ache starts to form in Harry’s chest cavity.

“You had to have tortured him.” His voice rises until he’s shouting. “There’s no way in hell he’d give it up otherwise.”

 _Right—even villains would have to have some loyalty._ Harry doesn’t know how to begin to explain this morning’s exchange to Dracon but finds that a large part of him wants to try.

Before Harry can open his mouth to begin, Paper Dracon spins on his heel and heads for the mouth of the alleyway.

“Wait!” Harry yells in an odd parallel to this morning.

Dracon only seems to increase the speed of his pace, which turns out to be to his detriment when he stumbles and has to latch onto the alley wall.

Approaching the swearing villain, Harry cautiously lays a hand against his arm. “I don’t know what’s going through your head, but what happened is probably not what you’re—”

“Get off!” He violently shakes off Harry’s hand and whirls around. “You know what? I don’t care. Blaizing Fire’s his own villain and can do whatever the bloody hell he wants. As can I.”

Harry dodges as Paper Dracon flings some of his paper cranes at Harry. They tilt off course, so Harry doesn’t have to work too hard.

With a deep feral growl, Dracon digs into more of his pockets, searching out more attacks to send Harry’s way. As he takes a step forward, forgetting in his rage about his broken leg, his good leg gives out from under him. His hands trapped in his pockets, Dracon’s unable to break his fall.

Harry’s not quick enough, and the villain hits the ground, hard. He winces in sympathy as a loud groan rises from Dracon. When he goes to lift Dracon back into a sitting position on the alley wall after momentarily powering down to not shock him, he’s limp in Harry’s hands. Wondering if he’s passed out, Harry’s careful not to jostle any of his other injuries, let alone the broken leg.

But as he’s moved, Paper Dracon speaks barely above a whisper. “I should have known. The moment he didn’t show right at the meeting spot. I shouldn’t have looked for him.” As he’s set against the wall, his attention shifts to Harry. “Guess professionals make mistakes too, huh, hero?”

Harry doesn’t like how deflated Dracon sounds, but he has a job to do as well. He sits cross-legged before the villain, hands propping him up as he leans backward and sends his electricity flowing through his system again. “Yeah, I suppose. But I doubt the Villain Agency stealing a bunch of files on England’s heroes was a mistake. That seemed quite deliberate to me.”

Dracon turns his head away.

“Silent treatment? Never pinned you for the type.” Harry’d be damned if another Agency villain clammed up on him. “Breaking into a government building like that, threatening the lives of a multitude of civilians and high-ranking officials—that’s really serious stuff.” He leans in. “Lot more serious than thieving from a local ironworks or acting shirty with the law or, hell, getting physical with some of the heroes.”

Dracon’s laugh stutters out of him.

Harry wonders for a moment if he’s breaking under the physical strain from those untreated wounds. He coughs into his fist. “You, uh, you all right there, Dracon?”

“Oh-oh, you’re asking i-if _I’m_ all right?” He’s brought a hand up under his mask, presumably to rub at his face. His shoulders still shake. “Ah- _ha_ , never change, hero. Never change.”

He feels a flash of irritation at the villain’s odd behavior. Perhaps that’s why he’s a bit more forceful than he’d intended with the next bit. “ _Anyway_ , as I was saying, breaking into a federal building and causing harm and damage there is much more serious a crime than anything I know you’ve done in the past.”

“Keeping tabs on me, are we?”

 Harry can’t quite place the tone in Dracon’s voice, but he knows it makes him uneasy. He opens his mouth to say that he keeps his eye on most villains he faces off with on a weekly to monthly basis, but Dracon beats him to the punch.

“Can’t be doing a good job of it if you think I’m—” He leaves a pregnant pause in the air “— _getting physical with heroes._ ”

Harry frowns beneath the under-mask. “Well, yeah. Our encounters turn physical all the time.”

Impossibly, Paper Dracon’s laughter heads up an octave, and he hunches over his legs in a way that has to hurt. “Oh! You’re too much. Too much, hero. Keep this up, and I might even learn your name.”

His gut twists. Before he can stop himself, Harry says, “We’ve been fighting one another for almost three years, and you don’t even know my alias?”

The villain’s laughter ceases, and he sits back up against the wall. He’s silent for a while, giving the impression he’s studying Harry. Finally, he shifts the good leg a little and speaks. “Course not. I’ve never called you by it, have I?”

Harry’s startled to find his electricity stuttering off. Feeling warm under the collar, he prays Dracon didn’t notice, but he knows how unrealistic that would be, particularly given that Harry’s the main light source in the alleyway.

“What’s one more hero but a drop in the bucket I have to deal with?” Dracon continues, like Harry’s reaction was encouragement of some kind. He wafts his left hand in a dismissive manner. “Hardly worth noticing.”

Harry tries to power back up but overcompensates, resulting in a brief flare of electricity jumping along the borrowed suit.

Paper Dracon pauses a moment. “And what’s more, who even goes around with an alias like that. What does 'Izulu' even mean? 'I'm a _My Hero Academia_ fan'?”

“I—were you being sarcastic?”

 Dracon continues as if Harry had never spoken. “Take my alias, for example. Obviously, people know what Paper Dracon would represent! Paper and dragon—that’s me, the paper controlling dragon.”

“Yes, paper.” Harry does jazz hands. “Super scary.”

He jabs a finger at Harry. “You say that mockingly now, but whenever we’d _get physical_ , I’d have you yelling _all night long_.”

Harry knows the villain’s trying to convey something by the way his tone dropped and wonders if it's hints about the current case. _Speaking of . . . ._ “Well, that was some nice bird walking there. How about we get back to the topic at hand.”

Dracon grumbles a bit, and the way his shoulders roll forward warn Harry he’s starting to clam up again.

His mind jumps around for what to say. “What’s your favorite brand of tea?”

“What?” Paper Dracon’s head jolts up.

“What’s the Villain Agency planning with those stolen identities?” _Smooth, Harry._

This time, the villain’s laugh comes out bitter. “Oh, I might be beginning to see why Blaise cracked. Anything to shut you up.”

“So, does that mean you’ll tell me what I need to know?”

“All right, I’ll tell you what you need to know. Come closer.”

Warily, Harry leans into the villain’s space until their heads rest side by side.

The dragon skull mask brushes against the fabric over Harry’s ear. “Piss off.”

Harry pulls back, rage concentrating sparks to his fingertips, even through gloves not made for him. “Will you quit whatever game you’re playing at? People are counting on me to come through with this, and you’re not helping!”

“Oh, so sorry, hero, for not _helping_ you. But I think you’ve forgotten just who you’re talking to.”

Latching onto the fabric covering Paper Dracon’s chest, Harry pins him to the alley wall, their masks nearly touching. “I know exactly who I’m talking to. Someone who has information we need to prevent unnecessary deaths.”

Dracon’s breath comes out in a hiss, making Harry realize he’s probably putting pressure on what must be a broken rib since he tried his best to focus his electricity away from his hands to not zap him. After Harry lets off a little on the force he’s using, Paper Dracon huffs out a few more breaths before replying. “And yet, you forget we’re diametrically opposed, hero.”

“Never like this. You may be a lot of things, Paper Dracon, but you’re no murderer—”

“You don’t know me—!”

“—I know enough! And people—good people—will die if that information stays in the wrong hands.”

Dracon’s chest rises and falls swiftly against Harry’s clenched fists.

Harry decides to try a different tactic. “Come on, I know it doesn’t have to be this way. You may have been raised into it, but you weren’t born evil. No one is.”

He starts to answer, but Harry shakes him a little.

“Every choice we make determines who we are.” He starts to wonder if holding the fabric too tightly would result in new rips and loosens his hold a little more. “I mean, come on. Haven’t you ever had a dream? Something to strive for that’s different from where you’re at? Something to prove everyone else wrong about? What keeps you going every day?”

“Yeah.” The hollowness in Dracon’s voice freezes the blood in Harry’s veins. “What’re dreams to villains are nightmares for everyone else.”

Harry loosens his grip entirely and backs up.

The Supervillain remains slouched against the wall. “Though, gotta say, that’s a cute little speech you made there. Talking about choices like they matter, when just before you were talking about how _good people_ will die because of _people like me_.” His head shifts so that Harry knows the villain’s looking at him behind his mask. “You already know I’m not _good people_.  And I never will be.”

Before he’s even aware of what he’s doing, Harry walks out of the alley and down the street. His fingers shake where they clutch at his own fabric.  Taking in a rattled breath beneath a streetlight, Harry wonders what the hell he thinks he’s doing. He spins on his heel and heads back to the alleyway, but he finds it empty of any trace of Paper Dracon.


	7. Chapter 7

“I can’t believe you let him get away!” Hermione paces in front of Harry in the observation room. “After Blaizing Fire actually gave you a lead!”

Harry just sits on the counter, back to the one-way glass. He doesn’t look behind him as Hermione gesticulates to the room beyond and the person within it.

“Now we probably won’t get anything else out of him!”

“I doubt he would have been inclined to cooperate more if we captured his cohort,” Harry grumbles.

“Why else would he have given you that information if it hadn’t been some kind of trap, then?” Ron’s been silent for most of the exchange, but he looks directly at Harry now.

Harry clenches his hands in his lap and shrugs.

“Well, since he was so keen to give you the lead earlier, why don’t you just ask him?”

“Oh, honestly.” Hermione huffs. “Do you really think that would work?”

“Dunno,” Ron says. “But it’d be worth a shot, wouldn’t it? Rather than sit here arguing about what could have happened?”

Hermione sniffs and glances away. “We should probably wait until Alpha Bee comes back.”

They all remain silent for a moment. Finally, Harry lifts his head. “What do you think the ‘urgent matter’ was?”

She starts fiddling at the sleeve-cuffs of her Superhero costume. “I don’t know. I hope it doesn’t relate to what we just let slip through our fingers.”

“Or worse,” Ron says, “that heroes have already been targeted.”

Harry looks through the glass to Blaizing Fire who hasn’t moved in the past half hour.

Hermione starts walking about the room at a slower rate.

Ron keeps his position leaning against the wall.

Anything to not look at one another.

“Do you reckon he’s feeling a little anxious?” Harry gestures at the glass. _“_ No one’s told him what happened or why he was brought back to the interrogation room.”

“If he is, he certainly hides it well,” Ron says.

Hermione makes a few more circuits of the room before the door opens again.

Alpha Bee steps inside as well as—

“Ch-Cho!” Harry hops off the counter at the same time that he powers back up.

She stops and turns her head towards him, the decorative blue feathers on her blue butterfly face mask swaying. “Alpha Bee, I wasn’t aware that the new generation of heroes knew of me.”

Harry’s palms become slick with sweat beneath his gloves.

“Cho?” Hermione taps a finger against her cheek. “Oh! Yes, I’ve read about you! Didn’t you disappear almost three years ago?”

Her head jerks in a strange manner. “Y-yes.”

Alpha Bee claps his hands. “She’s been on a long trip all these years, and we’re delighted to have her return to us.”

Gathering his courage to him, Harry blurts out, “I’ve always been a fan of your work!”

“O-oh?”

His toes curl inside his trainers. “Er . . . What I mean is—uh . . . seeing the way you and Ced worked together and helped people inspired me to become a hero!” He glances down at his sparking hands. “Even though it’s difficult.”

Harry shifts his gaze upward when silence greets him and finds almost everyone fixated on him.

Cho seems to shake herself. In an uneven voice, she says, “E-excuse me,” and exits the room.

Ron chuckles a bit. “Quite a way to make an impression on an old crush, eh, mate?”

“Oh, dear.” Hermione’s hands cover her face.

Alpha Bee echoes the sentiment and leaves after Cho.

“What?” Harry asks, dread twisting in his stomach.

“Harry, you _do_ know why she left years ago?”

“She needed a vacation?” Ron says.

“No. Yes? Kind of.” Hermione sighs and pulls her hands from her face. “She lost her partner on a failed mission.”

“Oh . . .” Harry says. There had been a rumor floating around that the two had been partners on _and_ off duty.

Ron crosses his hands behind his head and tilts his gaze up toward the ceiling. “That’s rough.”

“I know you didn’t mean to, Harry, but you mentioning his hero name to her probably left her really upset. I mean, she must have taken it hard to have been gone for almost three years.”

“But three years seems like such a long time to mourn someone, regardless of who they were, you know?”

“Ron, how would you react if, heaven forbid, we were to lose Harry in battle? Or me?”

Ron doesn’t say anything else, but Harry can see the way his muscles seem to strain beneath his suit.

“I-I better go after her. Let her know I didn’t mean anything by it.” Harry has to wait a minute before his hands stay steady enough to grasp the door handle.

He finds Cho and Alpha Bee standing right beside the door to the interrogation room. As he walks closer, he catches bits of their conversation.

“. . . reason I came back.”

“I know how tempting revenge may—”

“I don’t want revenge. I want justice.”

“You should be careful not to confuse the two.”

She waves Alpha Bee off. “I heard that they’re at it again. That we might be on the verge of catching—”

Their voices drop to a point that not even Harry can hear. Still, after a few more minutes of them whispering, Harry decides to clear his throat.

Both of their heads whip around to face Harry. But it’s Cho who marches toward him.

He lifts his hands in a placating gesture as she latches onto the front of his hero costume, evidently unphased by whatever shock she received for doing so. “S-sorry—”

“How could you have let one of them get away?” Her voice is hard.

A chill goes down Harry’s spine. “Er-pardon?”

“You had one of the villains, didn’t you? At one of their meeting spots.”

 _Oh_. His eyes dart toward Alpha Bee behind his lenses. The old Superhero’s shoulders are hunched, and his hands are held behind his back. Harry shifts his eyes back toward Cho.

She shakes him a little, and Harry feels the urge to laugh at the irony—mere hours before, Dracon had been in his current position. “Do you even know what kind of important information we could have extracted from him? How could you let that slip through your fingers?” She lets go of him, and he leans against the wall and slides to the floor. “If any heroes die because of what the Villain Agency knows, that blood will be on your hands just as much as theirs.”

_Is that how you see it? Is that why you ran away for all these years?_

“If that happens, you’re not fit for the title of Superhero.”

“What would a new villain have told us? We already have one, and we barely got anything out of him. Another one would have just been a complication. Or another reason for the Villain Agency to start picking off our hero—”

Her hands curl into fists. “You don’t get it, do you? They don’t _need_ a reason to come after us other than we stand in the way of them getting everything they want. And . . . .” She whirls on Alpha Bee. “What does he mean ‘another one’? We already have an Agency villain in custody?”

Alpha Bee raises his hands before himself. “Now, Cho . . . .”

“Let me in to see the villain.”

“He’s—”

“Let me in to see him. _Now_.”

Harry grabs at her ankle—careful to reign in his electricity—as she steps toward Alpha Bee. “You honestly think that seeing him right now, like this, would be more beneficial than harmful?”

She yanks her ankle from his grip. “What would you know about it?” Cho strides right up to Alpha Bee. “He’s there, isn’t he? Behind that door?”

“I don’t think it’s wise to—”

She walks around him and pushes on the door handle. It jiggles uselessly. Frustrated, she kicks at the door.

Alpha Bee grabs onto her shoulders and spins her to face him. “I know you’re upset, but you need to get a hold of yourself.”

A few tense seconds pass before she lays her head against Alpha Bee’s star-studded chest and releases a sharp sob.

“I know. I know.” Alpha Bee pats at her back. “You want to prevent anyone else from losing their lives to the Villain Agency. But you can’t do so by acting recklessly.”

“W-we h- _hic_ -have to find out w-what he knows before-before . . . .”

“We know. The heroes here are all trying their best. It’s not like we could force the information out of him if we tried.”

Hermione and Ron have come out into the corridor. They stop as they take in the scene before them.

Harry turns his head towards them.

Ron gestures at Cho and Alpha Bee, and then at Harry.

Visibly wincing for Ron and Hermione, Harry shakes his head.

But Hermione seems thoughtful as she shifts her attention back to Cho and Alpha Bee. “Hey, Cho.”

She turns in Alpha Bee’s embrace.

“Do you want to come back to the observation room with me? You can . . . get used to being back while Izulu—” here Hermione tilts her head in Harry’s direction “—tries to talk to Blaizing Fire again.”

Harry really wonders if he’d be lucky a second time or if they’re all putting their faith in the wrong hero. Again.

Cho pushes her fingers beneath her mask to rub at her eyes. “Okay.”

Hermione offers her hand, and Cho takes it. Together, they head back to the observation room with Ron trailing behind them.

Picking himself off the floor, Harry walks up to Alpha Bee. “Do you really think me going back in there’s a good idea? I mean, I did let everyone down by not getting anything useful from Paper Dracon.”

Alpha Bee sets a hand on Harry’s shoulder, and his eyes twinkle at Harry beneath his slim mask. “Oh, Izulu. Have faith in yourself. You did manage to get some good information from him before. Don’t stress too much over it, my boy. Just do your best.”

Harry grimaces a little as Alpha Bee passes along the corridor. What if his ‘best’ is inadequate?

He stares at the handle to the door with uncertainty for a few more minutes, juggling the two items Alpha Bee gave him before heading back to the observation room. Taking the first item, the key, firmly in hand, Harry slips it into the lock and slides the door open, shielding the second item in his other hand.

Blaizing Fire’s head turns as he follows Harry’s walk from the entrance to the seat across from him.

Plopping in the chair, Harry locks his gaze onto the white eye patches of the villain’s under-mask. “So . . . . How’re you?” He didn’t really expect an answer to the question and is therefore unsurprised by Fire’s continued silence. “I actually came to ask a few follow-up questions, if you don’t mind.”

No response from the villain is forthcoming. That’s fine. Harry did not anticipate this being easy.

Lifting his hand, he places the other object Alpha Bee handed him on the table. “Up for a game of cards?”

The slight shift in Blaizing Fire’s head provides Harry the only indication that he even glances at the deck.

Shrugging, Harry shuffles the deck and sets up a game of solitaire. “Why did you give me your rendezvous point with Paper Dracon?”

“Why did you go?”

“It was a lead.”

“You probably didn’t know that.”

“It was still something.” He deftly pries off a few of the cards that statically stick to his dealing hand. “Even if it could have turned out to be a trap.”

“Well, if that’s the case, you’re more stupid than we ever gave you credit for.”

“Is that so?”

“Or desperate.” Blaizing Fire’s tone takes on that wicked lilt that Harry so associates with Paper Dracon that Harry just blinks beneath his mask’s tinted lenses, hand with the cards stalled.

He recovers by starting his game, pretending his stillness had been a product of thinking over which moves he’d take. “Is that what you people call concern for friends? Desperation?”

“Foolishness, more like. We, unlike you heroes, know not to grow attached to those who can’t handle themselves in a bad situation.”

“Is that why you haven’t asked after Dracon?”

Fire scoffs, waving a hand in the air. “If you’d managed to capture him, I doubt you’d be in here with _me_.”

 _Damn, he’s quick._ “Quite the bold assumption. Besides, he seemed pretty concerned about _you_.”

“Oh, I’ll bet.”

“Sorry, you can’t bet. This is solitaire, and I’m the only one playing.”

“Go to hell.”

“Can’t. Too busy preventing hell from coming here.”

Blaizing Fire falls back into his chair, leaving Harry to wonder when he’d started leaning forward in the first place.

Harry’s pleased to have found the final ace in the deck, and he places it in its fourth separate pile. “But, really, he seemed kind of upset that you gave me your rendezvous point. Got into a whole tussle over it. He’s still injured, by the way. You wouldn’t happen to know who gave those to him? Or that broken leg?”

Fire seems to have fallen back into his silence again.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Harry says as he breaks into a good pattern of increasing the clubs pile and the hearts pile. “I still want to know why you all decided to nab a bunch of hero identities. But we’ll call this new inquiry . . . curiosity.”

Blaizing Fire taps the fingers of one hand against the tabletop. “Like I said, villains know how to handle themselves in a bad situation.”

“Still doesn’t explain why he’s able to move as fast as he does.  Even after nearly collapsing, he can make a quick getaway—”

“You let him get away?!” Blaizing Fire is on his feet, arms stretched over the table where his hands grasp the front of Harry’s costume, flinching only slightly at the sting of electricity. Harry’s neat piles of cards scatter as the table jolts.

 Startled, Harry chokes out, “I-I thought you knew already.”

The villain’s hold merely tightens.

 _Had that been a bluff?_ Harry wonders. “I mean, what other possibility would there be if he wasn’t in our custody?”

The door to the room bursts open, and Alpha Bee storms inside. A slight crackling sound follows as he raises his arms in Harry and Blaizing Fire’s direction. The fabric of Harry’s costume slips from the villain’s grip, and both of them collapse back in their chairs once Alpha Bee completes the motion of tearing them apart.

Harry’s fabric relaxes around him again after the other Superhero releases his hold.

“Are you all right, Izulu?”

Shifting his gaze from his ruined game of solitaire to Alpha Bee, Harry numbly nods his head.

“Come along, then.” He waves Harry towards him.

He gets up and is nearly within Alpha Bee’s outstretched arm before he turns back toward the table. “But what about—?”

“Someone will come in to collect the cards, my boy.”

From this angle, Harry can see that some even fell to the floor in all the commotion. Moving his gaze to the left, he notices that Blaizing Fire now sits limply in his seat, head turned toward the ceiling. He has half a mind to ask whether he’s all right, too, but his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth.

Instead, he merely follows Alpha Bee out the door.

 

~~*~~

 

It’s a few days since his last run-in with Paper Dracon in the alleyway in Kensington and since he last spoke with Blaizing Fire. Even more since he last tried to see the people injured in the kidnapping-turned-murder. He wonders when they will be discharged at the hospital and whether they’ll all still be babysat by the police for protection. Mrs. Figg had shooed him away when he went to follow up about the boat situation, and the blood tests Hermione has been running on that piece of fabric he’d given her have turned up empty of matches in the police databases.

He’s taken to carrying an unburdensome first-aid kit with him on his patrols, the handle sliding nicely through his belt loop and the box tapping lightly at his thigh. The extra amount of care he can now provide endears him faster to the people he helps. Turns out gauze and bandages go a long way.

Now he’s running his latest patrol in Central London.

Police and construction workers still swarm the Palace of Westminster, trying to fix the damage caused by the attack several days ago. All the extra police are there to guard the House of Lords and Commons should any bad actors choose to strike again. Harry personally feels that they’re wasting law enforcement’s resources since the Villain Agency already collected what they wanted from the House of Lords, but he won’t complain about not having to worry about the government section this time around.

Twilight reflects off the glass windows of the shops and businesses in the financial district, painting everything a purpling pink with dashes of golden orange. The street lamps start to turn on in the gathering dusk, prepared to replace the dying light with electrical radiance. In this type of setting, Harry loves to just soak in the sense of being connected to the bridge between natural and man-made wonders. His electricity is both a power of nature and power of man, and here he stands, living proof of that. It’s enough to make him breathless.

Now, considering his distraction and the fact that he is technically out on patrol, it wouldn’t be fair to say he’s out looking for Paper Dracon. But he finds him anyway.

Harry catches the bloke trying to ferret off with an older woman’s purse and nabs him in the alley he bolts down. “Really? You’re actually purse-snatching now?”

“Like you have room to judge! I saw you save a cat from a tree two weeks ago!” Paper Dracon leans on a rubbish bin for support. How he thought he could get away with that limp—hell, how he’s already managed to get away with that limp—Harry will never know. “Talk about cliché, hero!”

Harry waves his hand about dismissively at Paper Dracon. “You literally went from stealing important documents from Westminster to common thievery. That’s not cliché; that’s embarrassing.”

The villain makes an indignant noise, but Harry’s already turning away, retrieved purse in hand.

He’s out of the alleyway and handing back the handbag to the woman when he hears Dracon loudly swearing. The woman eyes Harry’s smirk and asks what that’s about. He tells her “nothing to worry about” and encourages her to enjoy the rest of her evening.

Hands behind his back, Harry strolls casually back into the alley, whistling some show tune that pops into his head. When he stands a meter or two from Dracon, he stops as though startled. “Paper Dracon! You’re still here?!”

Even though the dragon mask covers his face completely, Harry swears he can feel the sharp glare Dracon sends his way. “Piss off.” He tries again to extricate himself from the rubbish bin, but the strong static pull on his sleeve tugs him right back. “You did this, you prick.”

Harry hums in thought and rocks on his feet. “Guilty. Hey, have you ever heard about this cartoon they had over in the States? _Static Shock_. Her- _er_ —a hero friend of mine introduced it to me a week ago. Gives me some cool ideas for my powers.” His smirk grows even more. “Besides, couldn’t have you pulling your Houdini act again after another crime.”

“Oh, I see.” Dracon tries to situate his body in a more dignified pose while still stuck to the bin. “You got tired of me always getting away, and now you decide to try your hand at being a _useful_ hero.”

Harry’s smirk fades off his face.

“Let me guess. You pulled your little stunt when snarking me earlier, thinking I wouldn’t notice what you’d done.”

“Well, it did work,” Harry says, clinging to that last bit of pride before it slips away.

“Yes, you bested me, hero.” Scorn drips from his tone. He crosses his legs at the ankle. “Now what?”

_Yeah, now what?_

 Coughing into his fist, Harry straightens and strides towards Dracon. “Why did you try to steal that woman’s purse?”

“This again?” Paper Dracon lifts the gloved hand not attached to the bin and makes like he’s examining it. “Haven’t you figured out yet that this line of questioning doesn’t work?”

“It doesn’t make sense for you to attempt a petty crime—unless the Villain Agency really does pay you shit wages.” He scans Dracon’s form, most of the tears in his suit from almost two weeks ago still there even if most of the injuries have healed. “Though if that’s the case, why not just work an honest job?”

Paper Dracon starts laughing like Harry had said something funny.

“What?”

“Oh, were you serious, hero?” His laughter finally winds down to a few chuckles. “Thought I told you the first time we met that I’ve been trained for this my whole life. Who would want these skills to go to waste? Combat training’s hardly needed in some cubicle.”

“Who said anything about some office job?”

“Oh, so you meant some minimum wage fare? Like grocery bagger?”

“First of all, don’t say that with so much contempt,” Harry says, thinking of Neville who works at the local shopping center across from their secondary school to support himself and his Gran. “It's not right to devalue others' work. And second of all, who says you’d need to 'waste your skills'?”

“Dabble in vigilantism? Or . . . surely you’re not suggesting I try my hand at heroism?”

Feeling bold and a little reckless, Harry says, “Why not?”

“Why not . . . ?” This time, when Dracon burst into laughter, he collapses on the ground, bringing the rubbish bin crashing with him. “Re-really? Me? A hero? Ahaha _ha_! Now I know you’re taking the piss.”

“Anyone can be a hero, if they work for it.” Harry crosses his arms before himself. “You wanted to know what you could do that wouldn’t waste your combat skills.”

Dracon rolls around so he lies on his back. “Ah. You seem to have forgotten the detail of me and my cohorts having stolen from a government agency. A high federal offence. And that what we stole is deliberately meant to _hurt_ heroes. I’m sure after I spend my life sentence, my ghost will make an excellent do-gooder haunting my cell.”

 _How morbid_. Nevertheless, Harry’s breath catches once his brain latches onto the first bit of Dracon’s response, and he tries his best to hide his sudden interest. _If I can just get him to continue talking . . . ._ “Well, it’s bad but probably not that bad, right? I mean, if you work at being a hero now, you might shave off a few years. It would mean one less enemy to worry about for us. Plus, heroes and villains learn one another’s true identities all the time. Yeah, it adds a little more danger to the mix, but overall, it’s something people learn to handle. I doubt the Villain Agency has anything groundbreaking planned on that front.”

“Mmm, you really haven’t gotten much out of Blaise, have you?” Dracon seems to say this mostly to himself.

 _Damn, he saw through that._ “He seemed pretty upset to find out I let you get away.”

“Oh, I imagine. He was probably hoping to trade in one potential informant for another.”

“Wait, you mean you think he wanted us to capture you and let him go in exchange?”

“Why else would he give away our rendezvous point to the heroes?”

Harry doesn’t know, but instead he says, “Wow, some faith you have in your friend there.”

“Friend? Hmmm, yes, I think I’m beginning to see why you have such a slanted, optimistic view about my future prospects in heroism. We’re . . . comrades for a cause.”

“And that cause would be?”

Dracon shrugs. “Villainy.”

“That’s . . . so vague. Pointless, almost.”

“To you, I suppose it would be. How about—the cause is to serve the will of Voldemort and the seniors of the Agency, and therefore the point changes day to day.”  

“Ugh, I can’t believe you live like that.”

“Oh, all right then, hero. Tell me, what cause does the life of a hero serve?”

Caught off guard, Harry nearly swallows his tongue. “Uh . . . the public good?”

“Now who’s being vague?”

“Er, right.” Harry tugs at the thin piece of his mask that runs along the part of the back of his neck where his hair starts on his head and tries not to wonder what the hell he thinks he’s doing having such a casual conversation with an enemy. “I suppose a lot of it pertains to protecting people, helping them out where we can. And, I guess the joy we often get in return from the people we’ve saved goes a long way in bringing us back to help again and again.”

“Ah, yeah, see. People like me— _villains_ —spread misery, not joy.”

“Well, I mean, not every person always feels joy after being helped. At least not right away. Sometimes it’s something they only feel years down the line. Then there are the people who express sadness for the people you couldn’t save, rather than happiness for the ones you have.”

“Yes, and I imagine some villain’s always at the root of those people experiencing that sadness to begin with.”

“Not always.” As Harry says this, he notes the uncomfortable tone in Dracon’s voice.

“Well, it’s been fun, hero.” Dracon picks himself up from the ground, leaving Harry wondering when he’d been freed from the static cling pinning him to the rubbish bin. “But if you’re not arresting me for my petty crime or my federal one, I’ll be going now.”

Harry really should put him under arrest—if only so they could have another person to interrogate. _Like the first villain interrogation has been going so well._ “Wait!”

Dracon continues hobbling along the alleyway, hand against the bricks.

Harry lifts the first aid kit from the loop in his belt. “Let me wrap that leg up for you!”

Stalling in his tread, Paper Dracon turns his head enough so that Harry can see just the profile of the Dragon skull mask in the dying daylight. “No way in hell, hero.”

Harry bites his tongue. He remembers what Hermione said to him nearly two weeks ago. Taking a calming breath, he lowers the hand holding the kit. “All right.”

Spinning on his heel, Harry heads the opposite direction. He’s nearly at the mouth of the alleyway when a shout comes from behind him.

“Hold on!”

Turning back around, Harry sees Dracon in almost the same position he’d left him in. Only the tense set of the villain’s shoulders betray how much those two words must have cost him.

Cautiously, Harry walks back down the alley until he stands beside him. “Yes?”

Dracon twists his head so he faces forward again and away from Harry. “What’s this about wrapping my leg?”

Hardly believing his luck, Harry merely holds the first aid kit aloft.

“And . . .” Dracon’s hand clenches against the alley wall. “And what do you want in return?”

A million thoughts crowd Harry’s brain. _Answers_ rings clearest of all. He should say that; his fellow heroes depend on him to do so.

But also . . . _I’ve been carrying this first aid kit around for you._

“There’re plenty of things that I want.” Harry watches Dracon’s shoulders hunch.  “But not in return for this.”

The villain’s shoulders uncurl, but he still holds himself rigid as Harry—aided by his Supersuit—reels in the current flowing through his hands and gently reaches for his broken leg.

“You might want to sit down for this.” Harry helps guide Dracon as he slides down the wall until he’s seated on the ground.

The sun has completely set, and now Harry only has the light from the streetlamp trickling into the alleyway and his own electrical glow to see what he’s doing. Even so, just slightly feeling the leg causes his stomach to turn.

“Uh, Dracon?”

“Hmm?”

“It, uh, set wrong.”

Dracon releases a string of swears. “Break it again.”

“What?”

Through what sounds like clenched teeth, he says, “Break it again. So it can be reset and heal properly.”

Harry knows that’s what has to be done for this injury; he just never expected Dracon to want him to do it. “You sure?”

“Why would I say it if I wasn’t?”

“I mean, you sure you want me to do it?”

“You offered; I accepted. You backing out now?” While the last part had clearly meant to come out forceful, it instead leaves Dracon sounding hesitant and uncertain.

“No!” _This situation is strange. So strange_. “Only that I—”

“Then just get on with it, hero. Please.”

Harry’s teeth snap together with a _click_. He positions himself properly. “Brace yourself.”

Dracon tugs his good leg up to his chest and wraps his arms around it. “Have at it.”

A shout rings out in the alleyway as Harry reopens the break. Quickly, Harry re-aligns the bone properly. With one hand, he tugs open the first aid kit he left lying on the ground. Taking out a rail-thin piece of wood, he lines it up against the side of Dracon’s leg. “Hold that in place, would you?”

 Still breathing heavily, Paper Dracon lifts a shaking hand and presses it against the wood piece. “Little rough with that, weren’t you?”

“You asked that I re-break it, and I did. There really isn’t a way to go gently about it.” This time, Harry takes out another piece of wood and some bandage wrap. Balancing the wrap atop the leg, he presses the other wood piece on the opposite side of Dracon’s leg. “Hold that one too.”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“I know you’re in pain, but I’m still handling your bad leg. You sure you want to get smart with me?”

Dracon mumbles something unintelligible.

Now that Harry has his hands free, he takes up the roll of bandage and starts below the injury and works his way up. As he wraps the sticks in place, he debates asking where this injury came from. Thinking back on the night he found Dracon wounded in the ditch, Harry is pretty certain a broken leg wasn’t part of what was wrong.

 A sudden thought stills his hands as he nears the top of the break. “That night, when I found you just off of North Circular Road—” the leg tenses beneath his hands “—did you happen to fall off your swan after running away from me?”

The hoarse bark of laughter that fills the alleyway causes Harry’s hands to twitch. “Please! I control paper—there’s no way I’d just _fall off_. Again, you keep mistaking me for some kind of amateur.”

“Then how’d you break your leg?” When Harry glances back up at the dragon skull mask, it’s turned away from him.

After several minutes of quiet in which Harry recommences with wrapping the break, Dracon says in a small voice, “I thought you didn’t want anything in return.”

Through a determined effort, Harry’s hands don’t falter. “I was only asking. You’re not obligated to answer.”

The rest of the time Harry spends fixing up the break site is spent in silence. When he’s done all he can do, Harry stands back up and helps Dracon to his feet.  “Well, that’s it. I recommend you go see a professional, though. What I did won’t hold for as long as that needs to heal. Plus, you need to think about the possibilities of infection and—”

“All right, all right. I get it.” Paper Dracon waves Harry off. As he heads toward the alley mouth, hand digging in his pocket no doubt for a swan, he says, “Doubt you’d appreciate me jumping any more old women for the funding, though.”

Harry’s so floored by the willing admission that he only realizes he’s been staring blankly at the place Dracon stood only after he fled—again.


	8. Chapter 8

Everyone back at the Hero Order’s headquarters is less impressed than last time to hear he let Paper Dracon get away from him for a third time. Even Luna expresses her disappointment in him by not inquiring whether he came across the fairies that grant people powers like she normally does after a bout through London.

Faced with the disapproval of his friends and colleagues, Harry rushes to explain. “Okay, I know this looks really bad, but just hear me out!”

“I thought we ‘heard you out’ the last time.” Cho's glare pierces Harry through the eye holes in her mask.

“Y-you did. And for that, I’m grateful. But last time, and even before that, I don’t think I really knew why I didn’t bring him in. It was just this weird feeling I had.”

“Like, what?” Ginny tightly crosses her arms. “Your Superhero instinct?”

“Er, yeah, kind of.”

“Would you care to elaborate?” Hermione asks.

“Yeah, I was getting to that. I was just thinking of how to word it, since I’ve only really come to understand it recently myself.” Harry takes a long breath in through his nose and slowly releases it. “So, like Batshee said, it kind of was like my hero instinct was sensing something. That first time, I thought it was just because it felt wrong to arrest a bloke who’s unconscious and wounded.”

“While your sense of morality is commendable, my dear boy, Paper Dracon is still a villain wanted for crimes associated with the Villain Agency.” Alpha Bee’s fingers are steepled beneath his chin. “You really should have brought him in.”

Even so, Harry does not quite know how to word his misgivings about law enforcement without starting down a different long discussion. Instead, Harry says, “Yeah, probably. But here’s the other part of the whole hero instinct thing. I mean, from the beginning, I guess I sensed something was off. And today, when I let him go on purpose, I think I finally know.”

“On purpose?!” So many voices shout it that Harry cannot pinpoint the exact sources.

He raises his hands before himself. “I know. I know how you must be feeling hearing that, but I—”

“You have no idea how we’re feeling,” Cho says through clenched teeth.

Harry winces. “But I think you’ll all maybe understand in a moment. See, I think that there’s something particularly strange going on in the Villain Agency. Especially with Paper Dracon. Like, maybe a rift of some kind.”

Alpha Bee’s head sinks a little until his crisscrossed fingers cover his mouth. “Explain.”

“Well, I mean, I first was having doubts when I thought over Dracon’s injuries. Like how he got them, and why he was left in a ditch in an abandoned part of town. One of the theories I had was that he’d received them fighting with another villain since the attacker didn’t bring him in to the police.”

“Well, you didn’t bring him into the police either, Izulu,” Luna says, making roughly the fiftieth circuit of her spoon in her tea.

Coughing into his fist, Harry scrambles for what to say. “Yes, but, uh, I didn’t injure him and leave him in a ditch to die. I think it’s a little different.”

“If you say so.”

“Anyway, I think the other hint is that his injuries were still untreated and his outfit unmended the next time we saw him almost a week later.”

Ron’s fingers tap at the table. “Didn’t he say something about ‘being useless’ is a bad thing?”

“Yeah.”

“So then, doesn’t that mean he would have to work regardless of his state?”

“Well, yeah, I thought that too. But, if the Villain Agency doesn’t want useless villains on their hands, wouldn’t it make more sense to fix up his wounds and tears in his suit so they wouldn’t be a problem?”

Everyone in the room appears thoughtful now—except for Cho who rests her head atop her raised hand, elbow planted on the table. “So, what you’re saying is that the villains don’t take care of their own? That shouldn’t really be a surprise.”

“Er, I don’t know if that’s actually the case. While Blaizing Fire might have given us the rendezvous point for him and Paper Dracon, I still don’t know how to characterize their relationship,” Harry says. “I mean, Dracon continued looking for him even after he didn’t show up at the exact location—which Dracon himself admitted being a mistake after I caught him.”

Hermione says, “Which would hint that they’re kind of close?”

 “Yeah.” Harry’s right foot taps the linoleum. “Except, just recently, Paper Dracon said he thought Blaizing Fire gave away the rendezvous point so we’d have Dracon and let Fire go free in exchange.”

“Close for villains, then?” Hermione amends.

Harry’s foot stops. “Close for villains, then.”

Cho sucks in a deep breath as she draws back in her chair to fold her arms across her chest. “I still don’t see what this has to do with you letting him go _again_.”

“I’m getting to that. So, anyway, during that Westminster fight, Paper Dracon had an _extra_ injury—one that wasn’t from that night I found him. A broken leg—”

“—which he could have gotten from doing anything from then until that fight,” Cho says.

“ . . . Yes. But my point is that even _that_ wasn’t treated. No splint, no nothing. Hell, it had been let go so long that the bone reset wrong.”

Cho straightens in her chair. “And just how do you know that?”

Mouth suddenly dry, Harry says, “W-well—I, uh, treated . . . .” He coughs into his hand again, and the other hand fiddles with the back of his mask. “I set it in a splint.”

“You have a problem with bringing him in for interrogation, but no problem with knocking him out to tend to his injuries?”

“I didn’t knock him out.”

“Then how did you—”

“He let me.”

“H-he _let_ you?”

Harry can’t tell whether Cho’s furious or just shocked. “I mean, he didn’t. Not at first.” His tongue is thick in his mouth. “When I first asked if I could, he told me 'no'.”

“So . . . you convinced him?” Ginny at least seems to be taking it a bit better. Though, it may also be that she’s currently too baffled by the situation to have energy to spare to be upset.

“Er, not really. See, I took Her- _er_ —I took some advice that was given to me by a friend. Basically, I didn’t push it when someone said they didn’t want my help.” He glances down at his hands. “As someone who tries every day to be a good hero, it was hard—not rushing right in and aiding someone. But it was necessary.” Harry lifts his head again. “After I started to leave, I guess he had second thoughts—or maybe realized I meant it? —and called me back.”

“So, you not only let the enemy escape, you _helped_ him?” Cho asks.

Luna finally takes her spoon out of her swirling tea and taps it against the rim of the cup. “Does it really count as help if he put a splint on a fracture that’s already healing wrong?”

Feeling hot under the collar, Harry says, “Actually, I reset the bone. After Dracon let me re-break it.”

Hermione half rises out of her chair. “He allowed you to re-break the fracture?”

“Er, yeah. I was kind of stunned, too. But I guess he’s kind of like me in that once he decides on a course of action, he doesn’t tend to back down.”

Cho jabs her pointer finger in Harry’s direction. “That still doesn’t make sense. He barely had reason to trust you to help his wound, but then he lets you _injure him again_?! No way would a villain trust his enemy to do that—unless you weren’t an enemy at all.”

Harry’s electrical flow seems to short circuit a second before it comes back full force as he rises to his feet. “Just what are you insinuating, Cho?!”

“I think you know exactly what.”

The two of them are nearly mask to mask before Harry feels a tug on his costume that brings him jolting back into his seat, Cho likewise.

Alpha Bee claps his hands to gain everyone’s attention after using his Control over Fabric to pull Harry and Cho back to their seats. “Settle down, everyone. No throwing accusations at one another, please.” He tosses a glance Cho’s way. Then rubs a hand down his face. “Though, what you’re saying is a bit troubling, Izulu. I know you have a good heart, but you need to know when best to listen to its whims. And while your theory may be interesting, I don’t see how it connects with your actions over these encounters.”

He tamps down the urge to defend his heroic impulses. “I was getting to that. See, I think that there’s an opportunity for us to, uhm, for lack of a better word . . . _exploit_ this apparent rift between the Agency and Paper Dracon.”

Alpha Bee hums in thought. “Go on.”

“Well, we’re having difficulty getting anything out of Blaizing Fire, but he doesn’t really have a reason to give us anything other than we’re keeping him detained. But, maybe, if there’s trouble in villain paradise for Dracon, he might be more inclined to help us out—if only unintentionally.”

“Your plan seems to hinge on this villain letting important information slip—or even capitulating so far as to knowingly provide it.” Alpha Bee tugs at his beard. “Yet there is no indication thus far that Paper Dracon would even do so.”

“Not quite,” Harry says. “Just as he was leaving today, he basically told me he attempted petty theft so as to pay for treatment for the broken leg. Which also means he openly admitted that the Agency isn’t helping him out either. Or that he’s somehow got knocked off the payment rosters or had his accounts frozen so that he couldn’t pay with what money he already has.”

“Villain probation?” Hermione says, “Wonder what he could have done to warrant that.”

“I don’t know. But I hope to find out.”  He looks to Alpha Bee.

“Hmm . . . . Well, it certainly is an interesting tactic. And you’re certain that bringing him in will yield the same lack of results as with Blaizing Fire?”

“That, I also don’t really know, Alpha Bee. But I do know that I’m making some kind of progress this way, and that what I have right now with Paper Dracon is tenuous at best. Capturing him would likely ruin whatever headway I’ve made or could make.”

“So, what?” Cho says. “We’re just supposed to trust you? After all this?”

Ron speaks up after remaining silent for so long. “While I agree it’s good to be wary with so many of our members in danger, it’s prolly not a good idea to turn on each other when our fellow heroes are all we have in this bad situation. What do we have if not trust in one another?”

“And on that note,” Alpha Bee breaks in, “I say we take a look at what the law enforcement detectives have dropped off for us to examine.”

As they exit the meeting room and head down a flight to the evidence room, all the young heroes chatter together about what it could be while Alpha Bee takes the lead. Despite the somewhat strained relationship between the Hero Order and law enforcement as of late, the two organizations will occasionally share case details if the evidence starts to point toward a situation best handled by the opposing agency.

Harry hangs back from the group, both trying to mull over his thoughts as well as give everyone else their space, after the stressful scene in the conference room. However, his attention gets caught by Alpha Bee bringing up his name.

“Izulu, this should be of particular interest to you. You were the one involved with that kidnapping-turned-murder incident, correct?”

“Yeah,” Harry croaks.

“Well, what’s been shared with us is part of that crime scene.”

While Harry had figured that that crime would end up being one best handled by heroes, he’s still shocked that the police handed over evidence knowing that he’s particularly invested in the case. But the surprise swiftly shifts to a budding dread that blooms in his stomach like an infecting fungus. The case must either not be going well, or the situation is worse than he—or the cops—had originally imagined.

He mentally braces himself for what they are all about to see as Alpha Bee taps out the pass code on the keypad next to the door. A _blip_ noise fills the corridor as the light above the door flips on, and the steel door slides open.

As the group enters, Harry finds it’s not hard to spot the new evidence as it lies on the center table as though awaiting dissection.

They crowd around and are shocked to discover an encasement of glass separates their curious hands and the evidence. But none of them need to touch it—at least not yet. Its appearance speaks enough for itself.

Beneath the glass lies a mechanical, grey, skeletal arm, two of its fingers twisted together to appear as though they’re crossed for good luck. Two of the other fingers have been decapitated at the knuckles, and the thumb’s detached entirely—it has been placed next to the hand. The detailed mechanical wiring flows down from its exposed point in the hand under some protective plaiting starting at the wrist that continues to the elbow. From that joint, a new set of plaiting begins that cuts off where the arm had been detached from the body, ending in a cluster of frayed wiring and jagged metal. Additional holes and slits along the protective armor suggest more damage to the machine. Within these damage points, Harry can see flashes of cut wiring, little white bits, and cog-like machinery—particularly at the joints.

Hermione has stationed herself so she’s at eye-level, her nose almost pressed to the glass. “The officers who dropped it off—what did they say about it?”

Alpha Bee says, “It was what they had found in the rubble in the affected flats. While there is the possibility that it belongs to one of the flat owners, the complexity and damage it’s sustained suggests it had a part to play in the attack that night.”

“Well, I think it looks quite lovely,” Luna says.

“It is a fine piece of machinery.” Hermione’s breath fogs up the glass on her end. “But, regardless, if it had a part to play in that awful incident, it doesn’t really matter, does it? It would have been used to commit evil.”

Ron asks, “Do we know if any of the victims have confirmed fighting this thing—or whatever this arm was attached to?”

Alpha Bee frowns. “Unfortunately, the detectives are still treating witness testimony as confidential.”

“Then we’ll have to get it ourselves, won’t we?” Ron noticeably shifts his head in Harry’s direction. “Won’t necessarily be confidential information if we get it straight from the source, eh, mate?”

Harry shrugs. “You’ll have to get past the people guarding their rooms at the hospital, first.”

“Then we just have to wait until they’re discharged, which shouldn’t be too long, now—it’s been over two weeks.”

“Should we be really focusing on a case when plenty of heroes are in danger right now?” Cho asks.

“Ah,” Alpha Bee says. “While your concern is a genuine and valid one, we’ve already established we won’t be getting too far if we try to rush things there. We should focus on what’s in front of us.”

“While we wait for answers to come to us, heroes wait for attacks on themselves—or did you think no one here would notice it’s all the younger heroes here tonight?”

Sighing, he tugs on his beard. “Yes, the more experienced heroes haven’t been in lately. But, really, it wouldn’t be right for me, or anyone else, to place the sole responsibility of learning the Villain Agency’s plans on the younger generation. And especially considering the heroes who had their true identities stolen by the Agency are most at risk, it’s only fair that they should receive the comfort of knowing the Hero Order is doing its best to thwart the plot by having those same heroes be the top officials working the case.

“Now,” he throws a glance at Harry, “that isn’t to say we should leave everything up to them. We, too, are required to put our best efforts forth. But that said, we can’t fret over what has yet to pass while the present stares us directly in the face.” He pats Cho on the back.

Somewhat relieved to know that that’s why Alpha Bee has been so forgiving of Harry’s recent odd behavior, Harry decides to let Paper Dracon, Blazing Fire, and the case of stolen hero identities slide to the back of his mind. He shifts full attention to the mechanical arm before them and scans his memories of that night to see if its presence clicks into place. Unfortunately, he’s left feeling uncertain about whether he had seen any kind of robot that night, the suggestive image threatening to distort the integrity of his recollection.

“I’m not sure about whether I saw this the night I went into the building. Everything seemed to be on fire, and smoke was everywhere. And my main focus was on finding survivors of the explosion,” Harry says, feeling like he’s managed to let his fellow heroes down once again.

Ginny leans unapologetically atop the glass casement as she peers down at the arm. “It’s fine, Izulu. Though, for all we know, this thing could have caused the explosion, right? I second Dewr; we should try to talk to the witnesses again. Unless . . . the police gave us what information they have on the arm already?”

Alpha Bee says, “Besides what I already mentioned, the detectives have found that the arm is made from an odd type of metal. It’s rare in the sense that they haven’t encountered it before and have no leads on where it originated. However, from our analysis, it appears to be a metal called Acromium. Used to be common with Super families for acclimating well to different power sets. However, its deleterious effects resulted in the EU putting a ban on its continued use and trade around 1975.”

“So that’s why they gave it over to us,” Ron says.

Harry hums in agreement and then tunes out the rest of the conversation as it veers towards Acromium and the many questions Hermione has about the metal.

His eyes dart over the piece of machinery, begging for answers. Pressing his gloved hand against the glass, an idea strikes him as he stares at the electrical current running in its lightning pattern along his gloved hand. Carefully, he slides that hand down until it presses against the table surface and not the glass. Then, Harry shoots little bursts of electricity through the crack where the glass meets the table.

The electricity appears to tease the mechanical arm at first, making it shake where the sparks strike the metal. But when the current catches some of the frayed wires at the end, the entire arm jolts and comes alive.

Four things happen once this connection is established. The first is the sense that the mechanical arm is taking advantage of the energy Harry has offered it by the weird tugging sensation shooting down his own arm, as though the piece of tech is sucking at his electricity. The second is the way its two attached fingers flex as though grabbing at the air while it twitches at the wrist and elbow, the wiring lighting up like Harry’s scars. Third are the shouts happening around Harry at the very edges of his senses. But it’s really the fourth thing that holds fast Harry’s attention.

As the electricity flows through the discarded arm giving it new life, engraving previously overlooked due to how worn down it became—either through long use or during the explosion—lights up in stark relief. **DEMENT**. Despite nearly three years having passed since Harry’s hero debut, he still recognizes that lettering.

A numb sensation washes over him. His mind races with so many thoughts that he feels as though he’s hardly thinking at all.

The shouting that had seemed muffled earlier floods him as his electricity suddenly cuts off. He looks up to see Ron holding his palm out to him, and he realizes the numb sensation has taken over the arm he stretched out to the machine. Glancing down at it, he notes it shaking; he lifts his other hand to brace it and doesn’t feel the hand when it latches on. The slight movement makes him lightheaded.

Slumping against the table, he can hear voices chattering around him. Just like with the shouting, Harry can’t make out what they’re saying. Out of his periphery, he can see that sparks still jump from the arm, but its glow has died down again with its movement. Hands are on him, and faces swim before him as he passes out.

 

 

~~*~~

 

 

He awakens in the medical ward with Poppy Petal leaning over him.

She clucks her tongue when she realizes he’s opened his eyes. “One of these days, you’ll choose not to behave so recklessly.”

Harry groans and turns his head. He spots his mask lying on the bedside table next to a glass of water. As he stares at the glass, he becomes aware of how much like sandpaper his tongue feels as it rubs the roof of his mouth. He reaches for it and misses, his arm swinging wide of its mark.

Sighing, Poppy Petal grabs the water for him. She helps him sit up in bed and presses the glass into his hands.

After he’s drunk the glass, he asks with a slurring voice how long he’s been out for and what happened, his memory a bit hazy.

Poppy Petal crosses her arms. “Alpha Bee was showing you young heroes the new piece of evidence dropped off by detectives in an ongoing investigation. While you were all supposed to analyze it in due time, you, Izulu, decided to jump ahead by trying to power up the device.”

Harry did kind of remember that part.

“You should consider yourself lucky that you had fellow heroes surrounding you at the time. Had they not severed your connection when they did, I reckon you’d be out for more than just a day and a half.”

“Day and a _half_?!”

“Yes. I don’t know why you’re so surprised. You let that thing suck on your energy like a child does a juice box. And—lay back down! I just got you recovered to the point that you've awoken.” She firmly guides Harry back into the bed. “Don’t go overexerting yourself.”

Harry waves off her concern. “What happened after? I mean after I passed out? To the arm and our ongoing cases.”

The set of her shoulders declares she’s not pleased that Harry is not resting like he’s supposed to, but she’s dealt with him long enough to know he won’t when he’s this stressed about a situation. “Even after Dewr cut off your connection, the device continued to run as though powered by you. Further attempts by him to deaden its power were useless. The device—the arm, as you call it—felt the need to release the energy you had given it—”

“It attacked them?”

“. . . Yes. In the end, Harmony and Cho had to destroy it.”

“Damn it.” Harry clutches the bed spread and then lets it go. “That was all the evidence we had for that case.”

Poppy Petal moves to even out the spread from Harry’s wrinkling. “Hmm . . . . You should have been thinking that way before you decided to mess with it.” She pauses a moment. “That said, it isn’t ruined completely. Just in more pieces than when it arrived. Though, it might have some water damage from Cho’s attack.”

As relieved as Harry is to hear that the evidence hadn’t been totally destroyed, he can’t hide a wince when he imagines the moment Cho’s famous rain burst attack hit the highly electrical arm. He doesn’t have to make much of a leap in imagination to envision exactly how the arm came to be in many pieces. “Okay. And what about what else I’ve missed the last day or so?”

Her tongue clicks again as she helps lay him back down. “That can wait until after your next healing session is finished."

Harry wants to argue, but the growing ache throughout his limbs convinces him to concede.

Poppy Petal’s Control over Herbs allows her to speed up the healing process once they enter the body of her patients, as well as amplify their effects. Once she’s finished, Harry feels much more relaxed and less like his appendages want to fall off.

Turning his head, he watches as she seats herself on the bed next to his. Sleepily, he thinks her golden bird mask made to resemble the garb plague-time doctors wore makes her look like a ferryman to the afterlife, particularly with the dim candlelight casting half the mask in shadow. He knows the kindhearted medical hero would likely resent such a thought; so, he keeps it to himself.

Poppy Petal remains silent until Harry has almost nodded off. “There was an attack earlier today. At Mad-Eye’s place of residence.”

That jolts Harry wide awake. Mad-Eye is considered one of the top professional heroes in London. His Control over Sight makes him nearly impossible to sneak up on, as well as makes him the top-line pick for any security detail.

“I know what you’re thinking, and, no, we don’t know who was behind the attack as the culprits struck after he left his house.”

“But it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Who’s behind the attack?”

“Izulu—”

“Poppy, his was one of the identities stolen. How else would they know which house to attack?”

“But again, he wasn’t home at the time. Why ambush an empty house? It could very well have been a hit and run or coincidental robbery attempt.”

“I know you don’t believe that line, and, from what I know of Mad-Eye, I highly doubt he believes it either.”

“Then what are you suggesting it was, then?”

He doesn’t even blink. “A warning.” After a moment of silence, he continues, “I doubt it was a threat considering the Villains stealing the identities was threat enough. But they haven’t done anything with them since. Though, it’s a little odd for them to give away the fact that they’re testing the waters right now.”

She sighs, her slouched posture suggesting surrender. “If it truly is the Villain Agency, then it’s very likely that the attack on Mad-Eye was for intimidation.”

“Why would an attack on an empty home be intimidating to us? Yeah, it’s unsettling that the Agency knows where a good number of our older heroes live, but that just means updating security or staying here at headquarters until this situation gets handled.”

“It was an act of intimidation because it means they know how to slip past Mad-Eye.”

Their best at security. _Oh._

“But surely Mad-Eye will figure out how they did it and how to counteract their tactics?”

“Izulu, all powers have their limits.” Her head turns away from him, showing off the long sharpness of her mask’s beak. No doubt her mind strays to the many failed incidents where she’s tried and failed to heal his scar—before it could stretch down his whole body when powering up.

“And you’re saying they could figure out his limits just from his file?”

“Hard to say. I’ve never seen it. But I know we all hope this wasn’t an attack by the Agency.”

“Even though it likely is?”

“Even though it likely is.” Her hands twist in her lap. “They’ve been really interrogating him. That villain Batshee and Moondrop brought in. I know the Hero Order has been mainly leaving him to you younger heroes since he appears quite young himself, but this attack was a breaking point, I think.”

Unease rises within Harry. “He’s all right, right?”

“Mad-Eye? I suppose more shaken up than usual, but I haven’t really had a chance to—”

“No, no. Well, yeah, I’m glad to hear he’s holding up, but I mean Blaizing Fire.”

Her head cocks at the unfamiliar alias.

“Er, the villain being interrogated.”

“Oh.” She flattens the part of her robe that covers her lap. “I don’t know. But it’s probably not remotely the same kind of tactics you kids used on him. Hopefully they can get the information they need.”

“But at what price,” Harry says before he can stop himself. Since he’s already put his foot into it, he decides to forge ahead. “We’re supposed to be heroes. And while I know there’s some grey area involved where we’ll harm criminals to protect the public or stop their crime, that grey area has to end somewhere before treading into bad territory.”

Poppy Petal says, “This was why most of the older heroes didn’t want you younger ones to be involved in this case. You’re too inexperienced to know when personal morality has to be put aside to benefit the greatest amount of people when you’re placed in a difficult situation where no truly right path exists. Unfortunately for us, the Villain Agency appears to have no qualms to subjecting their younger members to the harsher realities.”

An image of Paper Dracon with his fractured leg submitting to the offered help of his enemy flashes through Harry’s mind. He starts getting out of bed. “Just what are they doing to him?”

“Oh, please lay back down! You’re still recovering!”

“Sorry,” he says roughly, grabbing his mask from the table and heading out the door.

He’s almost at the interrogation room before he realizes he’s in a hospital-style gown, the layers thin enough that it’s doubtful it would hold up against his electricity should he power up—but Harry’s too arsed to care at the moment. He has his mask, and that’s all he needs to protect his identity.

Of course, when he reaches the entrance to the interrogation room, it’s locked. He swivels around and marches to the observation room. When Harry enters, he’s nearly overwhelmed by the number of professional heroes crowding the space, most of whom he’s seen only in passing or on the news cycle.

Several of them turn their heads in his direction when he enters but look away again a moment later toward the window into the adjacent room.

Harry opens his mouth to speak, but, finally, self-preservation awakens within him. Is he really willing to risk revealing to so many people what Izulu really sounds like? Cutting off his words, nothing but a wheezy gust of air comes out. All right then. Should he power now? His muscles ache at the thought.

Instead, he strides into the room, bent on getting a glimpse through the window. As soon as he knows Blaizing Fire’s all right, he’ll head back to the medical ward, the soreness in his limbs and his growing headache agreeing.

However, just as he gets a view of the interrogation table’s far corner, a hero steps in his path. “Wotcher, Izulu. What are you doing here?”

A memory pricks at Harry’s brain, but it doesn’t connect right. He looks up to see Nix-Nymph staring down at him. That’s right, she’s been on the tele a few times.

“Weren’t you recovering in the medical ward?”

Harry automatically goes to speak but realizes what he’s doing at the last second. He shrugs instead. Then he gestures around her toward the window.

“Oh, you heard about the interrogation?” She pats at her neon pink hair and darts a quick glance at the window. “Or did you want to ask him a few questions?”

Harry hadn’t originally planned on it, but now . . . _I want to ask him if he’s all right._ He nods vigorously, further agitating his headache.

Nix-Nymph purses her equally pink-painted lips. “I don’t know, Izulu. Didn’t you already give it a go with your mates and not have much luck? And you don’t seem to be in a good condition to be interrogating anyone since you haven’t got your breath back from your walk here.”

Unwilling to try powering up yet or speaking with his real voice to prove her wrong, Harry just makes a helpless gesture with his hands.

“Are you sure you should be out of the medical ward? I mean, you still have the gown on.”

Harry nods, even against the bludgeoning ache in his skull.

“What’s all the ruckus over here?” Moon Howl says as he steps up beside Nix-Nypmh.

“Moony, Izulu here wants to talk to the villain. Even though he’s clearly in poor health.”

“Ah, is that true, Izulu?”

Feeling more tired by the minute, Harry nods his head again.

“I don’t know what you could possibly have to say that’s so urgent.” He rests his hands at his hips and lets out a long breath as he looks through the window into the interrogation room. “But it seems like they’re just ending things in there; so, I suppose it won’t hurt. We’ll see what the heroes say when they come in.”

So Harry waits there with Nix-Nymph and Moon Howl, rocking on his feet and trying to ignore his pounding head and sore limbs.

After what feels like an eternity, the door opens behind Harry, and several professional heroes walk inside. He doesn’t recognize a few of them, but Mad-Eye and Alpha Bee he recognizes immediately.

While the other heroes filter into the already crowded room, Alpha Bee stops when he spots Harry. “Izulu. You’re up.”

He gives the old hero a weak smile.

Seeming to shake himself, Alpha Bee strides forward and clasps Harry by the shoulders. “My boy, I’m delighted you’re back with us. You certainly had everyone deeply concerned. I hope you’ve alleviated Dewr and Harmony’s worries, in particular.”

Harry winces when he thinks about Ron and Hermione, suddenly realizing the stress he must have put them under.

“Hmm, I see.” Alpha Bee’s face softens from the radiant look it sported a few moments ago. “Then I suggest you head off and do that.”

Harry pulls himself from Alpha Bee’s grasp once he hears that, and, steeling his resolve, he prepares to explain to Alpha Bee what he wants when a _bang_ comes from behind him. Swiveling around, Harry sees Mad-Eye’s fist still on the counter.

“I’ll give it to them damn villains at the Agency; they sure know how to train their people to shut up tight.”

Darting a glance at Alpha Bee, he notes the disappointment that’s re-entered his eyes.

Alpha Bee notices Harry looking at him since he’s close enough to see behind the reflector lenses on Harry’s mask. “Yes, still not much luck with our young guest.”

Moon Howl’s hand lands atop Harry’s head. “Izulu, here, wanted to give it another go.”

Harry feels grateful to have someone else voicing his desire rather than having to pantomime it again.

“Yeah? Well best of luck to him,” Mad-Eye says. “At this rate, we might as well let the little blighter go, for all the help he’s been.” He kicks at a loose chair.

While Mad-Eye hadn’t been serious with his declaration, it gives Harry an idea. He looks back to Alpha Bee hopefully, and the old hero scans Harry’s masked face with his eyes before assenting and handing Harry the key. Relieved, Harry roots in the drawer by the door and nabs the deck of cards he’d used the last time he spoke to Blaizing Fire.

Once out in the corridor, he stands before the entrance to the interrogation room, key clutched in one hand and the pack of cards in the other. The sense of déjà vu nearly makes him dizzy.

Taking several calming breaths, Harry carefully begins powering up, willing the flow to be weak enough that it doesn’t tear into the gown.

The feeling of electricity opening and flooding the well-worn channels throughout his body has never more felt like fire. When he comes back to himself, Harry doesn’t know how much time has passed or when he braced himself against the wall. But when he looks at his arms, he sees the telltale glow of his power on the scars that elongated from his forehead. Sparks and electrical bursts jump along his medical gown. Harry can feel his hair standing back on end, having not been pressed back down in the first place after he’d been knocked out.

He allows himself a few more seconds to collect his thoughts and composure before sliding the key into the lock and stepping through the door.

Upon entering the room, the lighting seems much brighter than before, and Harry can’t tell whether that’s the case or if he’s light sensitive due to not feeling up to snuff.

Blaizing Fire is hunched over the table, elbow placed on its surface and head propped in his hand, his under-mask clutched in the other.

Realizing what he is seeing, Harry darts his gaze away. “Put your mask back on. Please.” Out of his peripheral vision, he sees Blaizing Fire jolt and turn his face toward Harry. Resolutely, he keeps his eyes averted, counting the bricks on the far wall. Still, the image of Fire when Harry first walked in burns on the back of his eyelids every time he blinks. The shorn dark hair, the deep brown skin . . . . _He’s Black like me_.

Harry banishes the thought before it takes root. “You wearing it again?”

“Yeah.”

He releases his breath and takes the chair across from Blaizing Fire. He meets the white eye patches of the under-mask and thinks about what Paper Dracon looks like beneath his identical face-covering. That line of thinking makes his heart palpitate in his chest, and Harry wonders what the hell is wrong with him.

“You look like shit,” Blaizing Fire says.

“Likewise,” Harry croaks.

“Sound like shit too.”

 _At least I have enough energy to come here to talk with you, you prick_. “So . . . what was that about. When I walked in?”

“Why’d I have my mask off, you mean?” He snorts. “You don’t already know?”

Harry’s stomach drops. “They—they didn’t . . . remove it. Did they?”

Blaizing Fire draws back in his seat, cocks his head sharply, and rests it against one hand.

The sensation of being studied has always made Harry’s skin itch; he knows the feeling of being measured up by a person better than he knows the feeling of passing their test. Just because he recognizes the sensation doesn’t mean it’s lost its effect of making him want to squirm. He clenches his teeth together in an effort to hold himself still.

Finally, Blaizing Fire says, “No. They didn’t.”

The dread curdling in his lower region disperses. “Oh. Good. Ah—er—I mean . . . then why—?”

“Oh, they certainly threatened to. If I didn’t give them the information they wanted, they told me right out that they were going to do so. And, yeah,” Blaizing Fire shrugs, “I understand that. Tit for tat, and all that. I just got so tired of those _heroes_ holding that over my head that I took that threat off the table myself.” The stiff way the villain holds his shoulders tells Harry that decision had been less simple than that.

“Okay,” Harry says. A niggling at the back of his brain says there’s something here he’s missing, a feeling that what Blaizing Fire is telling him is much larger than the flippant attitude suggests. But Harry is already so tired from his walk from the medical ward and from using his powers despite not having fully recovered, that he lets it go for now. Instead, Harry places the deck of cards on the table.

Blaizing Fire lifts his head from its perch on his hand as he evidently watches Harry shuffle the deck and deal to them both. “Not really up to it this time either. Find yourself a different playmate.”

“Oh, is that how you feel?” Harry pauses in his dealing. “What if I told you we were going to play poker?”

“I’d still tell you to piss off.”

“But you haven’t heard the stakes yet.”

“I’m not interested in playing strip poker with you.”

“Do—” _you normally play strip poker?_ An image of Paper Dracon playing with Blaizing Fire and the other young villains flashes through his mind. Harry fumbles the deck in his hand and has to reshuffle the cards. “That’s not what I meant. More like a wager. If I win, you tell me all that you know about the Villain Agency’s plans about the stolen identities and—”

The Villain’s sharp laugh interrupts Harry. “Like hell I’d agree to that.”

“Let me finish, will you?” Harry’s tongue feels heavy in his mouth. “If I win, you tell me what you know, and if you win . . . we’ll let you go.”

The temperature in the room seems to shift the second those words leave Harry’s mouth. Blaizing Fire’s no longer laughing at him. Instead, he’s sitting straight up in his chair.

The sensation of being analyzed is back, but now it feels like one scanning for weakness. In a hospital gown and with his body aching all over, Harry’s never felt weaker in his life. Not even during some of the more intense villain confrontations. But damned if he’ll appear vulnerable in this moment. He tilts his head up and juts out his chin to meet the challenge.

Blaizing Fire leans across the table, a cat prepared to jump an injured bird. In a voice several octaves lower, he says, “Deal.”

 

 

~~*~~

 

“I can’t believe you bloody well lost to that prick,” Ron says for the eightieth time. “I mean, blimey, Harry. You couldn’t have waited until you were better to make that kind of challenge? Now we’ve lost a source of information—granted, he very well sucked at that, but, still.”

“Sorry,” Harry mumbles for the eightieth time as well. He doesn’t move his gaze from the shadowed ceiling of the medical ward.

“We know you say you’re sorry, Harry, but you also overexerted your injuries in the process of being reckless. Again,” Hermione says, for roughly the fortieth time.

“I know, Hermione.” He finally shifts his eyes toward her, his hazel meeting her brown ones. “Don’t you think I want to be out on patrol, too, instead of staying in here, taking forever to recuperate?”

It’s been four days since he lost the card match against Blaizing Fire. The more Harry thinks back on the game, the more he’s certain the cheating bastard had somehow pinched some cards up the white sleeves of his borrowed shirt when he’d leaned over the table. There’s no other way he would have had one full house, two royal flushes, and three four-of-a-kind like he got. If Harry had been more himself, he might have been able to catch him in the act.

“Yeah, well, I say it’s kind of lucky you’re still cooped up in here, mate. Cho’s still pretty steamed about the Blaizing Fire situation.”

Harry winces. He’d been out cold when she’d evidently stormed to the medical ward to let him have a piece of her mind. Thankfully, Poppy Petal has a policy of not allowing in visitors who aren't privy to her patients' true identities. But as soon as he gets discharged, he knows he will have to face her. “So, any news for today?”

Hermione’s fingers tap at the cover of her current book, and Ron turns his head away.

“Guys?”

Hermione’s tapping stops.  “There was another attack today. Though, it was outside the London area. Further up north. Alpha Bee hasn’t released the names yet.”

“Damn.”

“I know.”

There has been at least one attack happening each day over the last few days, starting with the Mad-Eye incident. Seems like the Hero Order is going to be finding out the Villain Agency’s plans without Blaizing Fire around just fine.

“Was anybody taken this time?”

“No,” Hermione says. “But the heroes attacked have been seriously injured. They’re getting medical treatment up in their base.”

So that means they only lost the one hero, Charity’s Grace, the day after Blaizing Fire had been let go. She’d been ambushed on her walk home in her civilian regalia after a particularly grueling patrol. She’s been missing ever since. Looking back on that night, the heroes that had patrolled with her noted that the harsh night of crime fighting had most likely been orchestrated so that she had been too exhausted to fight back against the Agency kidnappers. The day after the incident, her civilian name had been splashed all over the papers, declaring the University Professor, Charity Burbage, missing.

“Is this the way things are going to be from now on?” Ron asks. “All of us continuing our heroic duties while the Villain Agency picks us off one by one?”

“I don’t know.” Hermione’s hands squeeze together in her lap atop her book. “We’ll have to wait and see what kind of counter plan Alpha Bee or the other older heroes come up with.”

“Don’t forget,” Harry says. “It’s not really us who faces the most danger here. The Agency doesn’t have our identities. Maybe the burden of patrolling the city should go to us younger heroes while the older ones lie low.”

“Do you really think the older heroes would just accept that, mate? I mean, would you?”

Ron has a point, but Harry isn’t about to give it to him.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” Hermione starts.

“As you tend to do.”

Hermione shoots a glare towards Ron. “I’ve been thinking—if the Villain Agency keeps up its tactic of picking off the older heroes, would they really need to steal our identities in the end? Think about it. If all the people who are left to defend London and the rest of Britain are the younger heroes, defeating us should be much easier for them. Compared to the older heroes, we’re much less experienced when it comes to using our powers, and there would be less of us out there to stand against the might of the entire Villain Agency—new and old villains.”

“So, what you’re saying is,” Harry grips his covers, “this is really bad?”

“Well, we already knew that, Hermione,” Ron adds.

She scowls. “Yes, I know we knew that. Just that I don’t believe we really took the whole thought on the matter to its logical conclusion of a complete takeover of Britain by the Villain Agency.”

“Do we know it’s the Villain Agency, though? That’s doing all the attacks, I mean?” Ron nibbles at his thumb nail. “Like, they could just be selling the information on the heroes to the highest bidder and that’s why it’s taken so long for these attacks to come.”

Harry asks, “But then why would there only be one attack per day? Isn’t that a little odd? If they auctioned off the hero identities they stole, wouldn’t it just be a whole bunch at once?”

“Hmm, yes,” Hermione says, “that is odd.”

All three of them sit there in silence for a little longer before Ron turns to Harry. “Did Poppy Petal tell you when you’ll be discharged?”

“She believes a few more days of bed rest and not using my powers should bring me back to my normal self.”

“That’s rough, mate. Can’t imagine how twitchy you must be getting while everything happens.”

Harry grimaces and shrugs his shoulder. “It is what it is. I guess I have to live with it if I want to be the most effective when I get back out in the field.”

Hermione nods. “Good way to look at it.” She stands and brushes herself off. “I’ll pass your suggestion of shifting the patrolling schedule around to Alpha Bee and see what he says.”

“Keep me updated.” He says it even though he knows they will. They have been for the last few days.

“Will do.”

“Cheers, mate.” Ron raises his hand in farewell as the two of them exit the medical ward.

Harry turns over in bed after the door closes behind them. If his powers had any latent self-healing ability, now would be a good time for him to discover it.

Despite his roaming thoughts, Harry forces himself to fall back asleep.


	9. Chapter 9

Monday, Harry’s back at school with his friends. While he’s grateful for their excitement at having him back, he’s less grateful for the workload he now has to go through since he missed a full week. The amount he must do to catch up compounds the stress of Alpha Bee taking up Harry’s suggestion of taking the older professional heroes off of patrol duty. Now all the younger heroes need to pick up the weekday shifts. Since Harry already missed so much school, the other younger heroes are taking days off for the morning and afternoon patrols—but that leaves Harry his typical night patrols during the only time he has to complete his schoolwork. By Thursday, he has fallen further behind.

He would like to say that he resents it, but if this works to keep the older heroes safe until they come up with a counter-plan, Harry isn’t about to complain. To be honest, he knows he’s lucky to not be put on probation after making and losing that high-stakes bet with Blaizing Fire. Plus, the fresh night breeze that whisks into his masked face as he sits atop a roof in Shoreditch hardly puts a damper on his mood.

It feels so good not to be in that stuffy medical ward another second.

It also feels good to know that his plan to keep the other heroes safe has mostly worked so far. Only one attack has occurred since the implementation of the schedule shift, but the ambushed hero had been able to fight the attackers off. That had been thanks to an additional idea set forth by Mad-Eye about the targeted heroes pairing up and sleeping over one another’s houses to limit the possibility of a successful attack.

One good thing to come from the latest attack was the confirmation that it is indeed the Villain Agency coordinating these assaults on the heroes—though, to be fair, little doubt had been placed that it somehow wasn’t. The two heroes involved had recognized the Agency Villain’s telltale masks before they escaped to the Order’s headquarters.

The breeze turns sharp, and a drop of water splashes onto one of Harry’s eye lenses. Harry curses under his breath. He doesn’t have great control over his powers in the rain.

Sliding off the roof, he lands in the nearly empty street. Apparently, he had been the only one not to check the weather report today. That’s fine. If the storm ends up being real blustery, not many folks would want to be out and about, meaning Harry could head home early.

He places his hands behind his head and walks a few streets before he sees several small figures. Barely holding off his grin, Harry powers down and sticks to the shadows of the buildings lining the road until he’s nearly upon the people. Then he brings his power back full force until he glows like a florescent light in the drizzling rain. “Now what have Harmony and I told you about playing out in the street?”

The children jump and shield their eyes at first when he floods the darkened street with his electrical glow, but, upon recognizing his voice, they swarm him. “Izulu! Izulu!” They shout.

One of them asks him to play a round of football with them. The goal posts consist of a knocked-over fruit stand and the mouth of an alleyway with fishnet stretched across it.

Harry pretends to consider it, mentioning how he really does need to get back to patrolling and that he shouldn’t encourage them playing out in the road.

The four kids chatter different excuses at him, telling him that “it’s all right to skive off sometimes,” and “it’s been so long since” he last played with them, and that, surely, the city could stand “five minutes” without him.

Harry does not yield until they promise that after one round with him, they will clean up and head back home to their families—and “no more playing in the street.” He knows they won’t keep that last one for more than a day, but a day, just like a single round, is better than nothing.

The children spend the next ten minutes arguing who gets to have Harry on their team. Charlie Jenkins ends up settling the matter when he says that whoever has Harry on their team would be at an unfair advantage because Harry is a Superhero. The other three agree with him. So that’s how it ends up being a game of four against one.

While Harry scores three times, he lets each of the children steal it off him to score once each. After the fourth and final goal, Harry falls to his knees in the wet street and lifts his head to the grey sky. “Ack! You have defeated me!” Then he powers down and collapses onto his back, arms spread wide and water soaking in.

The kids creep up to him, muttering to one another. Jane Jenkins boops him on the nose, while the others say, “Izulu?”

Harry jolts up, powers up, and pats at his chest, arms, and face. “I’m alive!” He whirls to face Jane Jenkins and fixes his position so that he’s on one knee.  “Oh, my great lady. Thank you for sparing my life.” He ducks his head in a bow while she and the other children giggle. “In return for this great act of mercy, I shall dedicate my life to making this city as safe as it can be for your ladyship.”

“ _Ahaha_ , but Izulu! You already do that!” She says from behind her hands.

“Ah, I do, do I?” Harry taps at his chin. “Then to repay her ladyship and her lovely comrades, please,” he ducks his head again, “allow me to walk you home.”

The kids visibly consider the offer before they all agree to it. On the walk home to their two houses, the children badger Harry about his most recent adventures, and Harry tells them about the old lady who misplaced her boat. (“How could she misplace a _whole_ boat?” Charlie Jenkins wonders the whole walk home, regardless of what Harry tells him.)

Mrs. Jenkins thanks him for dropping her three kids off, and Harry’s kind enough to not snitch and say they had been playing in the street.

For little Hardev Bakshi, Harry waits for the light to turn on in his room before he leaves. Both the parents work late shifts.

When Harry makes his way to the rain-slicked rooves again, curtains of water descend upon London. He debates heading home now when an odd orange glow in the distance catches his attention.

A heavy feeling settling inside him, Harry heads off in the direction of the glow. He’s well outside his patrol route of Shoreditch when he realizes he is heading in toward the Hero Order’s headquarters. The dread inside him grows as he picks up his pace.

He’s sprinting when the building comes into view. The inconspicuous office building is ablaze even in the pouring rain, which tells Harry that it’s being kept alive through unnatural means.

He shifts his gaze from the building but can’t seem to spot the pyro-powered people responsible for maintaining the blaze. Instead, he makes out a dozen backlit figures clashing with one another. He recognizes the work of some heroes’ powers, like Cho clearly taking advantage of the rainfall or the flurry of bats swarming different figures at the behest of Batshee. What stands out the most are several of the Supervillains in the crowd. The more his eyes adjust, the more villains he can see, and the more he realizes that the heroes fighting are sorely outnumbered.

Prancing Peacock, alongside nameless other villains, fights Nix-Nymph and Mad-Eye. Harry winces as he watches the poisoned tips of Peacock’s feather darts graze the two heroes. That’s one Supervillain Harry had hoped to not fight again after his first run-in with him a year back. To this day, Harry is unsure if he has grown to be a match for the skill with which Peacock fights.

On the other side of the building, he can hear the telltale cackling laughter of Lady Strange and the howls of Moon Howl summoning assistance. He prays Moony isn’t fighting that evil woman alone.

Standing as he is on the edge of the battleground, Harry debates what would be the best course of action. He wants to help, but his powers would be too erratic in all the rain. He would be much more likely to accidentally zap his fellow heroes than strike any of their enemies. The last thing he wants is to become a hindrance rather than a help in this situation.

Finally, he decides that he should try to locate the villains maintaining the fire devouring the Hero Order’s headquarters. That should eliminate the source of light that everyone is fighting by, as well as potentially save the lives of people still inside the building.

Nodding to himself, he darts inside the nearest building and starts to climb the stairs. Once he reaches the roof, albeit rather winded, Harry leans over the edge to peer down at the fight happening below.

His bird’s eye view gives him the advantage of being able to see most of the individuals out on the battlefield, as well as not having the people fighting backlit from the fire. He counts more heroes out fighting than when he could only rely on identifying their powers, but the villains still outnumber them a good three to one.

As much as he’s tempted to take stock of how the heroes are holding up against their opponents, Harry knows he has to focus on his self-assigned task. From his view on the roof, he casts his gaze about for any figure that looks to be directing their attention to the burning building. A few different suspects catch his eye, some standing apart from the other figures while the others blend in the crowds of people clashing. While Harry thinks it would be a somewhat smart stance for the villains to cloak the perpetrators of the arson in the groups attacking the heroes, he also believes that would make them too vulnerable to being taken out by accident. He doubts the Villain Agency would take such a risk considering how cautiously they’ve behaved thus far. That said, this whole attack would appear to spit in the face of their cautious behavior.

When the people Harry has been keeping an eye on turn away from the building, get knocked out, or turn out to be heroes he hadn’t recognized, he convinces himself he’s overthinking everything.

_If they’re not on the battle field . . ._

He turns his gaze away from the fight below. His eyes take a few moments to adjust to looking in the darkness surrounding him rather than at the brightly glowing blaze. Slowly, he depletes the amount of electricity running through his system to zero. Now that he’s stopped glowing, he strides to the left until he stands at the corner edge of the roof.

Shielding his lenses from the rain, he judges the distance between his current roof and the next to not be insurmountable. He takes a running jump, the upper half of his body making the gap perfectly. Latching hold of the slick roof edge, he hauls himself over. No one stands on this roof apart from him. He walks until he stands at the far edge again. Two buildings over—

_. . . they’d likely be on a roof._

Three figures stand on that roof’s edge closest to the burning building, hands outstretched.

Adrenaline spiking in his veins, Harry takes the jump to the next roof over without fully measuring the gap. As a result, he falls short, his hands sliding on the rain-slicked bricks of the building wall.  Uselessly, he powers up in his sudden panic—his electricity won’t break his fall. He descends for a good half a meter before his fingers catch at a window ledge, his wild electricity reverberating off the glass of the window so hard that it shatters.

Without thought, he swings into the building, landing on an office floor. His trainers crunch the broken glass beneath him. Shaken from the experience, Harry takes precious time to collect himself.

Once he knows that he’s regained his composure, Harry dashes around the current floor until he finds the stairs again, using the glow from his power to light the way. Before reaching the roof, he cuts off his electricity, fully aware that he’s been powering up and down too much consecutively tonight to be healthy.

Stepping out into the pouring rain once more sets a chill deep into his marrow, and he’s nearly overcome with the desire to step back inside. He shakes the feeling off and creeps on his hands and knees to the left side of the roof.

Peeking above the wall lining the roof’s edge, Harry can see the three figures much better, and he’s certain that they are the ones maintaining the fire. Even if the three of them hadn’t had their arms raised in the Hero Order’s direction, Blaizing Fire’s mask would have been a dead giveaway.

Harry gets startled by the sting of disappointment that goes through him. Whether that disappointment is aimed at Blaizing Fire or himself, Harry does not know. What he does know is that he has to make up for whatever he helped cause—right now.

He looks up toward the dark, cloud covered sky. Rain splatters on his lenses. Harry had only attempted something like this twice before, but at this point, it would be less erratic than trying to send his self-generated electricity out. Not to mention, powering up right now would be like sending a beacon to the villains standing only a few meters away from him.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Harry raises his arm above him and feels for the unrest in the atmosphere. When his fingers finally catch on something a thousand meters above his hand, he starts swirling it around, collecting more molecules. Harry can’t see what he’s created, but he can feel its power where he stands.

Looking across the gap to where the villains remain oblivious, Harry takes in a deep breath, and brings his hand down. Like a sorcerer casting a spell, lightning races down from the sky and strikes the rooftop the villains occupy. Electrical bursts scatter across the entirety of the rooftop and dance down the sides of the building.

Two of the villains collapse while the third falls to his knees. The light from the blazing building starts to dim as the rain finally hits, creating giant puffs of black smoke that rise and cover the surrounding area.

Delighted triumph floods Harry. He spins on his heel to go back the way he came and to try entering the fight still raging below.

But he comes up short when he turns around and is mask to mask with an Agency Villain. Harry registers the white dragon mask right before a sharp blow strikes the side of his head, plunging his world into darkness.

When he comes to, Harry registers that he’s lying on his back, arms spread wide and water soaking in, and only a light drizzle lands on him. Turning his head even slightly leads to a pounding headache. Harry lets out a loud groan.

“Oh, finally up, are you?”

 _I recognize that voice,_ Harry thinks, but that’s as much thinking his headache will allow.

Opening his eyes, it’s still a few moments before they uncross themselves. When they finally do refocus, the tall stature of Paper Dracon comes into view perched on the walled edge of the rooftop.

Memories and images crowd Harry’s brain, but now he has an idea of how he’s come to be where he is and . . . .

Sitting bolt upright with a gasp—a move that severely agitates his head injury—Harry’s hands fly to his face. The tension leaves his back and shoulders upon finding his mask still in place.

“Thought I’d have removed it?” Dracon hums lightly under his breath. “I suppose that would have been the thing to do.”

As much as it’s sure to pain him, Harry powers up. He swallows down his agony and turns his head as much as he can until Paper Dracon is within his sights. “Then why didn’t you?”

Dracon turns his head away and rubs his right hand on the concrete beside him.

If Harry didn’t know any better, he would think the villain had felt uncomfortable with Harry looking at him. “How’s the leg?”

Paper Dracon flinches. “Better.” He swings it stiffly in the air. A pause. “How’s the head?”

“Terrible. What did you hit me with?”

“Plank of wood I found lying around.”

“Why the hell would you use that?”

He shrugs. “You don’t expect my paper attacks to work in the rain?”

“I—”

“Well, I guess I could use the sopping mess they would make to smother you.”

“Hard pass.”

Dracon chuckles.

It still hurts for Harry to move, for Harry to think. He wonders if Paper Dracon knows this and what the villain would do to him if he does. Even as the sensible part of Harry’s brain begins to panic, another part shoves a thought to the forefront. “Say, if you’re no good in the rain, why are you here?”

The villain’s laughter cuts off.

“I mean, I know you said before that it’s not good to be useless with your lot, but—it’s just.” Well, since he already opened his mouth, best to finish the thought. “Why would you come to a battle knowing you’d be deadweight?”

“Excuse me?” Paper Dracon hops off the ledge and stalks closer to Harry. “I don’t think I heard you right. ‘Cause if I’m deadweight, what does that make you? Huh, hero? I took you down without my powers!”

“Okay, okay. Easy. Stop shouting.” He knows he should feel more fear with the angry villain so close, but, Lord, if his head wouldn’t split open from more of that shouting. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

Dracon grabs the front of Harry’s costume—Harry’s electric current so weak it doesn’t phase Dracon—and lifts him partially up from the ground. “I. Am _not_. Weak! Do you hear?! I’m not!”

“Woah- _ha_ _—_ stop sh-shaking me. Head injury! Remember?”

Paper Dracon doesn’t apologize, and Harry didn’t expect him to. But he does still his movements. “I’m not weak.”

“Yes, I know.” While Harry may be too out of sorts to know what’s going on, the crack in Dracon’s voice tells him it’s important. “I’ve fought you enough times to know. But like I said, that’s not what I aimed to imply.”

“Oh? And what _did_ you mean by calling me _deadweight_?”

Harry winces. He really should stop holding important conversations when beaten and knackered out of his mind. “Not the best choice of words, I admit. I just meant why would you come to an intense fight knowing your powers would be—uh—disadvantaged in this weather?”

“I thought you’d know that adaptation is a necessity in our lines of work.”

 _I shouldn’t have been so shocked. He did enter battle before in poor health._ “For what it’s worth, sorry that I inferred—”

“Don’t apologize to me.” Dracon drops Harry and strides back to the ledge.

Falling back to the ground hurt, but Harry is getting used to ignoring the pain. “What’s happening down there?” he asks Paper Dracon’s back.

The villain remains silent for so long that Harry suspects he hadn’t heard. Just as Harry is about to ask again, he says, “Basically over. After you knocked out Blaise and his squad, most of the Agency felt no need to stay. The rain put the fire out, though it’s much harder to say whether the charred parts will continue holding up.”

“Then why are you still here?”

“Mmm . . . .” Dracon pauses a moment. “To watch out for the last few stragglers still fighting. Pick them up or take them out depending on how the fight looks.”

“It’s still raining though.”

Paper Dracon sighs. “Your point, hero?”

“Never mind.” Several more minutes pass before another thought occurs to Harry. “Wait, then why are you hanging around me?”

Dracon straightens but does not turn around. “What do you mean? I’m your enemy, and I knocked you out.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t leave me here to fight elsewhere.” At least Harry doubts he did since the rain would limit Dracon’s ability for movement.

“You struck out some of our key pieces in this battle. I would be remiss to just let you go for that.”

“But you haven’t restrained me. And I don’t think you’ve ‘captured’ me either.”

He turns to face Harry again, arms crossed. “Who says I haven’t?”

“Says me, who can still freely move around and who is powered up as we speak.”

“Why must you be so difficult?” Paper Dracon mutters.

“I doubt our encounters would be as interesting otherwise,” Harry says. “So, why are you letting me go?”

“I’m not—” Dracon cuts himself off and seems to mull over a thought. “Why have you _been_ letting me go?”

_Oh. Well . . . ._

He strides toward Harry again, but this time, instead of grabbing him and hauling him up, the villain crouches next to Harry. “What kind of game are you playing at, hero?”

“I—game?”

The gloved hands placed on the villain’s knees clench into fists. “What do you want from me?!”

“I-I don’t—”

“Everybody wants something. Everybody’s after something. Everybody has a price. Even people like you.”

The conversation Harry had with Alpha Bee and the young heroes comes to the forefront of Harry’s mind. But as he stares at Dracon’s white mask and his shaking hands, he can’t honestly say it’s to extort information out of him. The odd feeling fluttering in Harry’s chest that’s so familiar brings the truth to his lips. “I care.”

Dracon snorts and turns his head away. “You’re just going to lay there and lie to my face?”

“No.” Harry presses onward. “I do. I care about people. Even people like you.”

 He rolls back on his heels, a choked noise coming from his throat. Swiftly, Dracon stands back up and walks back to his previous perch.

Harry wonders, as Dracon remains quiet, if he’d offended him again. Though, if that were the case, the villain has made sure in previous instances to make it known. Maybe Harry should just keep his mouth shut until the world stops spinning around him.

“Blaise—Blaizing Fire—” Paper Dracon’s voice is so soft that Harry nearly misses it. “—told me about what you did. How you kept to the Code, even for him.”

“So,” Harry says, “you were returning the favor?”

The villain’s head turning partially in Harry’s direction is all the confirmation he gives. “Had his identity been revealed, he’d have become a liability to the Agency. The only thing worse than failure in the Agency’s eyes.” His hand ghosts over the broken leg.

Harry barely dares to breathe.

“His life would have been forfeit.”

“What’s the price for giving up information?” He says it before he can stop himself.

A hollow chuckle comes from Dracon. “Why do you think the price for having one’s identity revealed is so high? What else could the useless pawn offer his enemies in exchange for mercy but information?”

“I-I see.” _Then why had Blaizing Fire . . . ?_

“He and I may have our differences, and, as chuffed as I was that he gave you the rendezvous point, I must admit I was a little wounded that he thought I’d snitch.”

Blaizing Fire’s odd behavioral shifts suddenly come into perspective for Harry. When he’d found out that Harry had let Paper Dracon go, he’d thought Dracon would inform the Agency of his loose lips. Maybe he thought that clamming up on further information would be some kind of saving grace, but from what Dracon says, the more hardened villains that run the Agency don’t know mercy. Perhaps Blaizing Fire realized that himself and that’s why he readily gave up his identity.

Harry wonders if Paper Dracon knows Fire took his own mask off during his second to last interrogation session and that many top heroes saw what he looks like.

“Well, he seems to have re-entered the fold nicely.” Harry uses his head to gesture toward the building Blaizing Fire and his cohorts had stood upon.

“Blaise’s powers have always been useful for causing destruction.”

 _So are mine, but they don’t have to be used that way,_ Harry thinks. _And neither do yours._

Harry attempts to get to his feet but his knees give out halfway.

Dracon turns halfway towards him. “Feeling better, hero? That head injury not going to do you in, is it?”

“In your dreams.”

“Didn’t we have this discussion before? It’s nightmares, not dreams.”

Harry, stunned, wonders if Dracon realizes what he’s just implied.

He lifts a gloved hand. “It’s stopped raining.” Shifting his attention to the battlefield below, Dracon stuffs a hand in one of his pockets. “It’s been real fun, hero. But villain duty calls.”

In the next moment, the villain disappears from view. Part of Harry knows he should have tried to stop him, but the logical part of Harry knows he can barely lift himself off the ground, let alone fight a Supervillain.

As Harry crawls to the stairs, trying to remember if he saw a lift anywhere when running around the building earlier, he realizes Dracon really did let him go.


	10. Chapter 10

The Hero Order headquarters truly is in shambles. A large portion of it’s torched, and a good half of it is collapsing in on itself. Hermione and a few of the other heroes had managed to save items in the evidence room while the building had been ablaze. Poppy Petal had salvaged some of her herbs before the fire had caught the medical ward.  Alpha Bee and a few other heroes had shepherded villains and suspects detained by the Order out of the burning building. Most of the detainees had been sent to law enforcement since headquarters had been thoroughly thrashed.

Mad-Eye had been the only casualty in the battle, which in itself was some kind of miracle with how outnumbered the heroes had been. He had leapt in front of Nix-Nymph while she was down to shield her from a barrage of Prancing Peacock’s poisoned dart feathers. All of them had struck him directly. He’d died instantly.

Many more heroes, including Nix-Nymph, are put up in the make-shift medical ward Poppy Petal set up in the Weasley’s house—the only place with enough room to momentarily act as headquarters thanks to Mrs. Weasley’s Control over Space. Even with most of their identities in the hands of their enemies, placing them in actual hospitals is considered too much a risk to their privacy and safety. Poppy Petal is the only hero at the Order to know every hero’s secret identity since she handles all injuries.

Despite mainly fighting Mad-Eye and Nix-Nymph, Prancing Peacock had still managed to nick several other heroes on the battlefield with his poisoned feathers. Apparently, it’s a new concoction, and Poppy Petal has enlisted Hermione’s assistance in her race against time. Some of the other injured heroes, like Harry, have to wait for the quieter moments for treatment.

Harry got his head injury wrapped, and he had been told he does have a slight concussion. Which is great. Just fine. He still has to wait for the main bulk of the other patients to be treated, though, before Poppy plans to handle his less pressing injury.

As Harry waits in a darkened room while the hours tic by, he thinks over how he could have behaved differently. Whether he should have taken aim at Prancing Peacock’s group when he had been on the roof. Or whether he should have let the building burn since most of the other heroes had gotten everything important out while the place had still been on fire. A thousand different paths not taken lay themselves at Harry’s feet in the dark, and Harry wonders which ones a good hero would have trod.

Caught up as he is by his own thoughts, it’s hard to miss the sound of the door opening and closing. Deciding that tailing the person who just left makes for better use of his time than tormenting himself with his regrets, Harry slides out of bed and sneaks out after them. In the dim light of the hallway, he catches a glimpse of a bare foot heading up the stairs to the roof. Wrapping his blanket tighter around himself, Harry follows.

The Weasley family roof has a small square patio with black rails boxing people in and preventing them from falling. It’s empty when Harry steps out into the night. Stars and a half-moon glitter above in a rare clear sky.

Harry wonders if hallucinations are a part of being concussed. Before he can turn around and head inside, a voice calls out from behind him.

“Why did _you_ follow me out here?”

Spinning on his heal, he spots the figure sitting on the higher part of the roof where the slanted sections come together. Her feathered, blue butterfly mask looks grey in the moonlight.

His lightning buzzes through him, coming alive against his skin. “Cho.”

Like always, her dark hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail. “That’s not an answer.”

“S-sorry.” He ducks his head and rubs the back of his neck. He stepped right into this one. “I didn’t mean to follow you-er-well. I mean, I meant to follow the person who left, but I didn’t know it was you. I wouldn’t have. Uh, if I did, that is.”

“I heard you were concussed. I didn’t know it was bad enough to make you babble.”

“Uh . . . no. I just—” _Okay, deep breaths, Harry. Start over._ “Do you mind? If I come and sit with you?”

Her head tilts. “What would that solve?”

“I dunno. Might not solve anything, but it would be good to try. I think.”

She stares him down for several more moments before relenting and patting the patch of roof beside her. “All right, then.”

Elated, Harry drops his blanket and scrambles up the paneling to sit beside the heroine. His footing slips a few times, but he makes it in one piece—which is good considering he doubts Poppy would have the time to patch him up again.

They sit side by side in silence for awhile. A single cloud drifts from the right and passes over the moon before continuing to the left horizon.

“I know you don’t like me,” Harry says into the stillness. “That’s fine. I think I understand why. You feel like I’m putting my own desires before everyone else—”

“Don’t pretend to know—”

“—and you’re probably right.”

That hushes Cho.

“You’re probably right to feel the way you do—because, today, I realized I am. In a way, at least.” Harry releases a breath, and it fogs the air in front of him. “After knocking out the Supervillains maintaining the fire on headquarters, I ran into that villain again. The one I kept letting get away from me. He gave me this, by the way.” Harry lifts a hand to pat at the bandage around his head. “The concussion, I mean. Not the wrap.”

“A good return on your investment, I see,” she mutters.

Harry hums good-naturedly. “Yeah, I suppose. But, during that latest run-in with him, I recognized a feeling I had in my chest—one that comes before I rush into collapsing buildings or stop a kidnapping. I cared . . . for him. A villain.” Harry laughs even though it’s not funny. “How pathetic is that? But something about him calls out to me, at least since this whole mess started. I look at him, and I see someone as lost as me.”

“That’s not pathetic.” Cho keeps her head facing the sky, jaw working. “That sounds like the nature of a hero. To care when no one else will.”

It sounds like acceptance, and Harry feels numb with it.

“You’ve frustrated me,” she continues. “Your actions have seemed senseless to me and spoke of a willingness to put your fellow heroes in danger while you flirted with letting a villain escape justice. It appeared careless, the way you behaved. Like, as long as what you did didn’t affect you, you didn’t have to take your duty as a hero seriously.”

Harry winces but doesn’t interrupt.

But now,” she says, “you seem to have cared too much.”

“Eh-heh. Yeah,” Harry croaks.

“Do you know why I’ve taken your actions so personally?”

“You’re afraid what happened to Ce—your partner—will happen to the other heroes.” _In a way, it already has._

“Hmm, yes. Partly.” Her breath ghosts before her face before dispersing in the air. “You see, it’s my fault he died."

Harry sits up straighter.

“I'd been incautious—reckless in my behavior and ignorant to the consequences.” Despite her attempts to approach the subject from a subjective, analytical standpoint, emotion still creeps into her voice. “Riding high on a successful early career with my partner, I felt like nothing—no obstacle, no villain—could stop either of us. We were soaring high above all expectations. So, when— _that_ —mission came, I thought nothing of it." A shudder passes through her.

“You . . . You don’t have to explain it to me. If the memory’s too painful.”

She shakes her head and continues, “It had seemed like a regular call. Some trouble with thieves down by the Wharf. When we arrived, C-Ced said the place was too quiet.” Thievery by the docks always sounds like a loud scuffle, Harry knows all too well. “But I just brushed it off. We were by the water, I had reasoned. My power had an advantage in that setting. So, we entered several dock sheds and warehouses until we found the right one."

"So, you found where the thieves were hiding out?"

She shakes her head _no_ again. “We only knew it had been the right one because the doors closed behind us, and metal grating fell down to cover the windows." She wraps her arms around herself. "It was so dark. Only multiple pairs of red lights greeted us. I tried using my powers to yank water in from outside or to bust down the doors, but it was as if we were insulated.” Her chest rises and falls with a shaky breath. “My ability was useless, and Ced had been relying on me since it’s a rarity to find earth at the docks.”

Despite Harry vaguely knowing where this was headed, he still feels dread curling inside him at what is yet to come.

“What made everything worse was this giant . . . .” She stops speaking and brings a fist up to her mouth.

Harry can hear her swallowing. He wonders if he should put a hand on her arm like he did for Ginny ages ago. Thinking of the shaky ground on which their current relationship stands, he decides against it.

Finally, Cho inhales deeply and draws her pale hand away from her face. “This giant _sucking_ sensation. It was as if my soul was being ripped from my body. Ced must have felt it too, but he wrapped his arms around me and bore the brunt of— _whatever_ that was."

"I've never heard of someone with a power that sounds like that."

“We knew the red lights had something to do with it, but they always stayed out of our reach. Our only hope had been that some of them must have overheated due to whatever they had been doing to us. Most of them exploded during our time locked in with them."

"They were machines?"

She nods. “By the time backup arrived and burst down the door, I was nearly unconscious and Ced—he was . . . .” She chokes off again and doesn’t finish the thought. “I was told afterward that the remaining robotic creatures that ambushed us self-destructed once the heroes burst in. They’d barely shielded us from the blast—it had destroyed all other evidence.” She leans her head onto Harry’s shoulder. “Not even Ced's autopsy gave any answers.”

Slowly, Harry stretches his arm over to her and covers the hand in her lap.

“I knew I couldn’t stay here in Britain after that.” Her other hand rises to rest atop his. “I let my grief guide me away. Traveled a lot with my family and stayed in touch with friends. I tried to move on. Took me three years to realize I hadn't. Being back feels worse, but I can't keep running.”

“I-I don’t really know what to say.” Harry clears his throat. “But it’s awful brave of you. To come back after all that. Really reminds me of why I always admired you—eh, _er_ — as a hero. Y-you and your partner, that is.”

She turns her head to look at him.

“Eh-heh-heh.” He uses his free hand to rub at the back of his head. “It’s just . . . . The first time I ever saw you was when I was roughly ten. I was riding a bus with my . . . aunt, uncle, and cousin. It had turned over after a villain dodged an attack from Ced, and the rock struck its side. I don’t remember who you were fighting, but I do recall clearly, you helping everyone climb out safely, even though your powerset would have been better off aiding Ced in the fight.” Harry closes his eyes as he pictures it. “There . . . . there was a gas leak, wasn’t there? That’s why you had to get everyone out? In case it caught fire and exploded.”

“I think I vaguely remember that.”

Harry chuckles. “It’s perfectly fine if you don’t. I’ve certainly aided enough people in my three-year career to know how a lot of it just . . . runs together.”

“All right. I don’t particularly recall the incident.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Harry says. “But what really stuck with me was how you went in and pulled _me_ out.”

“If I was saving everyone on the bus, why wouldn’t I pull you out?”

“Er . . . . I mean, when you say it like that, it sounds kind of stupid. But, you see, my aunt and uncle weren’t . . . great people—to me—even though they raised me. Excellent to their wanker of a son, though. I have a feeling they never really got over my mum marrying my dad.” _Get to the point, Harry!_ “Well, er, I guess what I’m trying to say is that it was really . . . nice. Having someone look out for you. Or, well, to be included in the group being look out for, rather . . . .”

Glancing at Cho, Harry notes she appears thoughtful.

Deciding that he should keep going before he loses whatever nerve drove him to say all that in the first place, Harry says, “You really gave me something—er, _someone_ to look up to and something to strive towards. And keeping track of all your adventures, it really made me want to become a hero—which is odd, considering I should probably have been inspired by my parents. But it’s hard to be inspired by people you don’t truly know and feel like you should. Too many complicated emotions there.”

“Wait, I really did inspire you to become a hero?” Cho seems mystified. “I thought you’d just said that first time we met to make me feel welcomed back at the Order.”

Feeling some of the awkwardness fade away, Harry smiles brightly at her. “You sure did! My Control over Electricity at the time had been erratic at best, but you helping out in situations where you didn’t even use your Control over Water made me feel like anyone could become a Superhero. So long as you persistently work towards it and believe in helping people in need.” He sighs. He sighs. “To make one other person believe—like you did for me . . . I'd have made it, then. As the kind of hero I strive to be.”

“I’m glad to have made such an impact on someone.” She pulls away and rests her head on her knees. “But, you must be disappointed now. Having fled from my hero duties after not being able to even protect my partner.”

“For not even a minute did I think you were some lesser hero—for losing your partner and disappearing for so many years. Can’t imagine anyone else would, either."

“But what hero lets their partner die? What heroine is so useless, she can’t even use her Control over Water by a _river_?”

“From what I know of Ced, I think he wouldn’t want you to think that of yourself. In the end, he chose the path of someone who loves you, putting your life before his own.” Harry stares up at the half-moon. “You shouldn’t feel guilty over a fate he chose himself.”

“But it wasn’t one _I_ chose.” She pulls her head away from her knees—straightening them out on the tiled roof—faces him and places a hand over her chest. “I didn’t choose for him to die for me. I didn’t even dare think either of us would die.”

Harry winces and swallows thickly. “Yes, well . . . . It’s a possibility, isn’t it? One that every hero accepts each time they put on their Supersuit. Any one of those times might be the last. I’m sure you’re aware of that.”

“Of course! It’s just . . . . We were together to aid one another. Keep one another alive. He kept me alive, but I couldn’t . . . .” Moonlight trickles into the slits in her mask and Harry can see close her eyes. “I never wanted him to die for me.”

He doesn’t know what to say that, really. He’s hardly had to deal with this kind of pain himself. Yet as he thinks on it, Harry knows he would readily die for Ron and Hermione—as they would for him. The mixture of love and despair that blooms in his chest at the thought is nearly enough to crush him. “But you’d have died for him, right?”

“Yes.” The word hisses out from between her lips.

“Do you think I’d be having the same conversation with Ced? If he were here instead?”

Cho turns her face away from him and pulls her knees to her chest.

Harry takes it as a _yes_ and mimics her pose. “You probably wouldn’t be the great hero you are if you didn’t feel regret over the people you couldn't save.”

She sniffles, but otherwise doesn't respond.

“But that’s the nature of a hero, right?" Harry says, thinking back to what Cho said earlier. "To care even when it hurts like hell.”

 

 

~~*~~

 

Poppy Petal is not happy to find out the both of them have been out of bed. She lectures Harry and Cho about how she doesn’t have the time to re-heal them if they exacerbate their conditions. Considering Cho is dealing with burn wounds while Harry handles a concussion, Poppy spends an extra five minutes warning Harry about the dangers of too much light hurting him.

Resolutely, both he and Cho return to the makeshift “non-poisoned residents” medical ward. Harry is put under strict orders to not enter a lighted room or think for too long. That second order from Poppy is so impossible for Harry to follow, considering all the different events and information swirling about in his brain, that Poppy is forced to knock him out for several hours at a time. For Harry, the unconscious state is better than all the thoughts crowding for his attention.

A week goes by before Poppy Petal lets him off his strange form of medical probation.

Mrs. Weasley is delighted to have him sitting at her kitchen table rather than holed up in one of her guest rooms, not allowed visitors. She hums and coos over him, muttering about how “the poor dear’s gone through so much,” and “what a poor little sausage, getting a concussion!”

According to Ron, she’s been like this with most of the recovering heroes in her house when she runs into them. Hermione seems to believe Mrs. Weasley is relieved that at least some of her guests are getting better—the luck with healing the poison victims has been dicey at best. Though, both admit that Harry has always been a favourite of Mrs. Weasley.

Since their little moment on the roof, Harry has seen Cho twice. Both times, they awkwardly greet one another before shuffling away. Still, it’s an improvement from their frostier relations over the past few weeks.

Alpha Bee has stopped by a few times to check in on how the injured heroes are recovering. These rare instances allow for even rarer updates about what’s going on outside the world of the Weasley household.

They learn that the night the Villain Agency attacked the Hero Order headquarters, more than half the Order’s pro heroes had been preparing for attack in their homes, while most of the younger generation had been off on patrol. Truly, their headquarters had not been more vulnerable to attack than it had been on that night. It had been lucky that Harry had noticed the odd glow from the fire while he had been out on patrol.

Since the attack, while spread even thinner than before, the uninjured heroes—both new and old—have taken up the patrols of the city.

Even so, most of the heroes agree this game cannot continue the way it has, where only one side plays the cat and the other the mouse. Alpha Bee has been steadily trying to calm a rising revolt in the ranks of the heroes who want to take direct action against the Villain Agency the way in which the Agency has targeted the Hero Order.

Harry feels split on the matter. He knows they can’t keep being sitting ducks, but just like Hermione had pointed out when the trio discussed the option together, taking such an action without quality information could lead to mutual destruction of both organizations.

As Harry lies on the couch in the Weasley drawing room, he mulls over those options as well as the other thoughts that had been kept at bay for over a week. Pushing away the confusing thoughts about Paper Dracon and Cho, he thinks about the unsolved kidnapping-turned-murder case, and how the patients admitted to the hospital have most likely been discharged.

Thinking about the odd case causes the mechanical arm to drift to the forefront of his mind. Just as he starts wondering if law enforcement handing over that kind of evidence had been tantamount to handing over the entire case to the Hero Order, a memory flashes through him.

Harry jolts upright on the couch, adrenaline spiking in his veins. He had forgotten about the odd lettering he had seen on the arm before passing out. **_DEMENT_** _, right?_

Hopping off the couch, he dashes off to search for Mrs. Weasley.

He finds her humming over a large pot of stew. Harry taps her on the shoulder.

She whirls around, wooden spoon in hand. “Oh! Harry! You startled me. What do you want, dear?”

“Sorry to bother you, but would you know where the evidence items were put that were recovered from headquarters?” Harry bounces on the balls of his feet as he awaits her answer.

“Ah, yes! In the basement. But they’re kept under lock and key, so I suggest grabbing the key-ring from the lowest drawer in the loo.”

Harry thanks Mrs. Weasley, retrieves the keys from the loo, and heads into the basement.

It’s cold and crowded with stored items in the lowest level of the house but knowing that what he’s looking for is locked up works in his favor. He locates the chest of drawers that corresponds with the keys on the ring fairly quickly.

The scattered remains of the mechanical arm are in a box in the third drawer from the floor. He lifts it from out of the drawer and takes the lid off. To get a closer look, he brings the box under the closest light overhead.

Apart from being in multiple pieces now, what Harry had observed about the mechanical arm remains true. Now, the wiring is in smaller pieces and completely ripped apart in others. Smaller bits of the grey metal litter a good portion of the box’s inside.

His hopes sink as he realizes the pieces are too small to put back together, that he won’t be able to confirm whether he had hallucinated the lettering or not. He wonders if Justin Finch-Fletchley, one of the victims of the incident, would know.

When Harry is about to put the lid back on, his eyes catch another type of debris mixed in with the wiring and metal. It’s the little white bits he remembers seeing before, embedded inside the arm’s plating. Now that he’s much closer, he can see them better, and a sinking feeling appears in his stomach.

Carefully, he moves his right hand into the box and takes out one of the little bits. Feeling it between his thumb and pointer finger, he confirms that the material is paper.

Harry drops the bit back into the box, puts the lid back on, and replaces it in the drawer. Exhaustion hits as he reaches the top of the stairs. But as he re-enters the home full of wounded heroes, Harry remembers exactly what’s at stake.

Regardless of what he finds out, he knows he has to speak to Justin.

 

~~*~~

 

Looking up Justin’s address is much easier than Harry thinks it should be, considering Finch-Fletchley is an attempted murder victim in a currently open case. But that’s something that Alpha Bee would have to take up with the police.

Despite the chill, Harry still manages to sweat in his hero costume waiting out on the stoop after ringing the bell. He had debated with himself whether he should dress more conspicuously to avoid drawing attention to Finch-Fletchley, but then figured that would be pointless since any enemies Justin had would already know his easily-found address.

Justin swings the door open, wearing a yellow pullover and blue jeans. He double-takes on seeing Harry—meaning to Harry that the guy had been so incautious as to open the door without checking through the peephole first. “I-Izulu?”

 _How has this guy survived for so long?_ “Yes. I hope you’ve been recovering well from the incident from almost a month ago?”

Shaking himself a little, Justin plasters a smile on his face. “Oh, yeah. Thanks, again. For helping me out.”

Harry nods. “And do you know how the other survivors are holding up?”

“Eh.” He rubs a hand along the back of his neck. “The doctors didn’t go into details when I’d ask. But from what I did hear from them, they’ve recovered just fine.” His eyes return to Harry’s eye lenses. “Though, I’m guessing that’s not all you’re here to talk about?”

“Yeah. I was hoping to actually get your account of what happened the night of the incident.”

Finch-Fletchley frowns. “I already gave my statements to the police.”

“Yes, well . . . .” Harry wonders a moment how best to phrase it. “At this moment in time, law enforcement has decided to keep witness statements confidential.”

“O-kay.”

“It wouldn’t be a breach of confidentiality to get your testimony directly from you, however.” Harry nibbles his bottom lip. “That is, if you'd be willing to provide it.”

“I don’t know,” Finch-Fletchley says. “If the police are handling it, wouldn’t it be better to keep heroes out of it?”

“That might be the case in other instances, but, for this one, the detectives have already shared evidence with us heroes.”

“Just not the testimony?” His nose scrunches as he thinks it over. “But if it’s truly relevant to your investigation, why wouldn’t they give it over to you?”

Harry suppresses a sigh. “Because it would violate your privacy rights as a witness and potential victim. Even if it would help our end of the case.”

“Hmm, I suppose that makes sense.”

“Look, if you don’t want to repeat your testimony, that’s fine. You’re under no obligation to do so. Just tell me to go away if you don’t want to, and I will.”

“Though, you say you need it for the case?”

“Yes, but we could still probably work around it at the Hero Order.”

Finch-Fletchley stuffs his hands into his jeans pockets and purses his lips. “All right.” He steps aside and motions with his head. “Come on in.”

Harry blinks behind his mask. He had fully anticipated being told to piss off.

“Is there something the matter?”

“Uh.” Harry mentally shakes himself. “No. No, I’m fine.”

Justin shuts the door behind Harry as he steps inside and gestures to the sitting room. They sit in seats opposite from one another—Justin on the couch and Harry on a stuffed chair.

Justin says, “Sorry, I don’t have any tea ready, and I imagine your time is quite precious.”

“It’s fine. You don’t have to go make any. Just do what would make you most comfortable.”

“Well, all right, then.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “What would you like to know?”

 _Where to start?_ “How about you tell me how you came to be in that building that night?” Harry flips open the notepad and holds his pen at the ready.

“Hmmm, okay. I had been taking a walk in the local park with some friends—Hannah and Ernie.” He looks at Harry for recognition. “You know, the other two you pulled out of the building that night?”

“Oh,” Harry says, a flash of embarrassment coursing through him. “I only knew your name because you were conscious at the time I rescued you. The others? Not so much.”

Justin nods and twists his pale hands together in front of him. “All right. So, Hannah, Ernie, and I were going through the park like we normally do on Fridays when a masked figure appeared off to the side. That person must have knocked us out because, the next thing I know, I’m waking up in a darkened room all tied up.”

Harry knows the question he should ask next, logically speaking. But he decides to hold off on it for now. “So, then what happened?”

Finch-Fletchley hesitates. “From here on out, my memory’s a bit fuzzy.”

“That’s all right. Just tell me what you can recall.”

“Well, I remember being tied up. I think Ernie, Hannah, and the other few people with us were tied up too.”

“So other people besides you and your friends had been among those kidnapped?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

“Okay. Do you remember calling out for help at all? Or anyone else in the group trying?”

“Hmm . . . .” Justin rubs at his temple. “Now, see. This is some of the stuff that’s a little muddled. I don’t recall being physically gagged, but, thinking back, I get the sense I was too—too scared. To call out, I mean.”

“And what about the others with you?”

“I-I don’t know. When I think back to being in that room, all I can call up is the terror I felt.” Justin shivers. “Even thinking of it now, I . . . .”

“Okay, that’s all right. Do you recall anyone else being in the room with you besides the other kidnapped people? Like the masked person or any other type of odd item . . . ?”

Justin sucks his lips into his mouth while he thinks. “I believe . . . there were . . . two? Masked fellows in the room.”

“Two?”

“Yes. Yeah, I’m pretty certain of that.”

“And—” Harry takes a breath. “And do you remember what their masks looked like?”

“For the most part, it was pretty dark in that room—but after the explosion, I caught a good look at one of them.”

“Do you remember why there was an explosion?” Harry says quickly.

“Uh, well. The two masked people had some kind of machine with them.”

“What kind of machine?”

“Not entirely sure, but it had these bright red-glowing lights when it had been turned on.”

“Red lights?” Harry nearly drops his pen.

“Yeah. They were placed in a way that you’d almost they think were eyes.” He rubs at his chin. “I don’t remember much of what it did. But, I guess, underneath the fear, I felt really cold. No that’s not quite right. More like my body was going numb—though, that still might have been from the terror.”

“Was that all?”

“Hmm . . . I remember feeling really tired, but again it was quite the stressful situation.”

“And the explosion?”

“Oh, right. So partway through, I think the two masked people started arguing. About what, I couldn’t tell you. But at some point, I think the machine—robot? Thing? —got bored with us and turned to face one of the figures.”

“How’d you know it turned toward one of the figures?”

“Well, we could no longer see its lights, so it wasn’t facing us anymore. The only other options were that it turned around or shifted to face one of the people standing on either side of it.”

“Okay. Then what happened?”

“Well, one of the arguing voices went up in pitch. I remember that pretty clearly because it matched well with what I had been feeling at the time. The person the machine was now facing ended up backing up into the light cast by an adjacent room in the flat.”

“Could you see what he was wearing?”

“It was definitely an all-black get-up. I could definitely see why it had been hard to see him in the shadows of the room. But he stopped retreated before the angle of the light could shine on his head.

“So after that, the machine followed after him. I remember its outstretched arm touching the beam of light, reaching out towards the figure. Very skeletal and creepy-looking, too.”

A mental image of the severed hand flashes in Harry’s mind. “I can imagine.”

Finch-Fletchley nods and visibly suppresses a shudder. “Anyway, I think the masked person yelled out, ‘stop it!’ really loudly—or at least, something to that effect.”

“Could you tell if that was aimed at the robot or his colleague?”

“Could have been to both.” Finch-Fletchley lifts his shoulders in an unaffected shrug. “But regardless of who that was aimed at, the robot kept coming closer to the figure. I think the colleague had been laughing while this was happening—so, it must not have been a good argument the two were having.”

Harry hums and continues jotting down in his notes.

“I don’t know, the cornered person continued to sound more and more desperate. Finally, the trapped figure shoved his hands into his pockets and flung something at the outstretched arm. It made a weird clunky sound, and it must have dropped down to the machine’s side since it disappeared from view but didn’t make a sound like it hit the floor or anything.”

“So, the masked person attacked the machine?”

“Yeah. “Finch-Fletchley bobs his head. “Everything after that went a little crazy. I think attacking the robot made it mad because it then attacked the person who hurt it.”

“What did it use?”

“I don’t know, it moved too fast for me to see. But it made the figure who attacked it cry out and hunch over. Then the two of them entered a fight in earnest. They knocked furniture over, broke the light in the other room, and scraped the flooring. After they got one of the hostages good with an attack, we all did our best to slide flat to the floor.”

“That must have been really frightening.”

“Huh, you know what the strange thing is? It actually had me feeling less fear. Almost like the situation came into better perspective where, yeah, it was clearly bad? But it hadn’t been the mind-numbing fear I felt on first waking up.”

Harry nods along while he writes a quick note down and circles it. “And the other masked person in the room. The accomplice? The one who had been laughing. Could you tell what he was doing during all of this?”

“He had stopped laughing after the colleague started attacking the machine. I think he was yelling? I couldn’t see if he was doing more than that, though.”

“That’s all right. How long do you think the fight went on?”

“Probably until the explosion happened. I think the masked figure fighting the robot caused it to explode somehow.”

“Ahh. So, it had been the machine that had exploded?”

“It had been a small explosion at first. Enough that it lit some of the knocked-over furniture on fire.” Finch-Fletchley leans back on the couch. “Looked like some fancy stuff too. But anyway, with the fire, I could see that both the masked figure and the robot were pretty banged-up. Lots of rips in the one bloke’s outfit. Little harder to tell with the robot since I didn’t have a good look at it before the fight started, but it seemed to be sparking in places it hadn’t before.”

Harry stops writing as he stares blankly at the page.

Finch-Fletchley doesn’t seem to notice, since he continues anyway. “Then he flings something at the robot at the same time that the robot throws something at him. The machine’s attack causes part of his mask to nearly fall off while also making more slices in his costume. As for the robot? Got one of its arms fully sliced off.”

In a tired voice, Harry asks, “And could you see what the mask looked like?”

“I got a better look at it when he took it off. Seemed to be a white, snarling dragon skull.”

Behind his lenses, Harry closes his eyes. “I see.”

“Yeah, pretty neat, all things considered. Didn’t get a look at his face, though. He had another mask on beneath that one. Can you believe that?”

“I can. That is the trade-mark of the Villain Agency, after all.”

“Woah, you mean they were Agency villains that kidnapped us?”

“That’s what it sounds like.”

“Huh. What could my friends and I—or any of the other hostages—have that people like that would want?”

“Funny. That’s what I had been planning to ask you. So, you have no idea?”

“None that's come to mind in a month’s time.”

“Okay. So, the Agency villain took off his outer mask while fighting the robot . . . .”

“Yeah. The next wave of attacks came mostly from the machine while he tried to block. Must have also got him in the eye since he cried out and brought a hand up to the mask. Actually, the robot had to have been aiming for his head, considering that’s where most of the new tears appeared.”

“And where was his partner during all of this?”

“I don’t know. The fight basically sucked up most of our attention since me and the other hostages didn’t plan on dying.” Finch-Fletchley looks up at the ceiling. “Being tied up, though, makes it real difficult to dodge anything. At one point, the masked person had been right in front of us before dodging one of the machine’s attacks. We weren’t able to.”

Harry swallows. “Were you badly injured then?”

“Mostly grazed me and a few of the others. But that must have been when one or two of the other hostages died.”

Harry winces.

“To be honest, I don’t really blame him for jumping out of the way of those attacks. He’d already been taking loads of hits.”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“Finally, he must have done something because, suddenly, the thing just outright explodes, knocking him clear out the window.” Justin says, “You’re pretty much privy to the rest.”

“Quite the rough night. And you’re sure you saw no other instances of the accomplice in the flat after that? Or indications that he escaped?”

“Not really. Like I said, I hadn’t exactly been focused on him, so he could have slipped away at any time or been blown out of the flat in the explosion.”

“Okay,” Harry says, shutting his notepad. “Thank you for taking the time to go over that again for me. Couldn’t have been easy for you, all things considered.”

“Think nothing of it. After all, I do owe you my life, and you were involved that night. Least I could do is give you some kind of explanation.”  He stands up and clasps Harry’s gloved hand. “Though, I hope after this, I get to go ahead with forgetting this whole incident.”

“I hope so too.” Harry places a smile on his face that doesn’t reach his eyes behind his mask. “What are you doing nowadays, since you’re discharged from the hospital?”

“Been job hunting.”

“Oh, don’t tell me you lost your job over being hospitalized?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. See, I used to work at this indie film company as their lighting expert, since I was pretty good at Control over Light.”

Harry blinks. “I didn’t know you had a power.”

A flush rises up Justin’s neck. “Ha, yeah, well. It wasn’t really a good enough one to justify trying out hero work.”

“Hey.” Harry claps Justin on the shoulder. “Just because it’s an odd power doesn’t mean you can’t make it work for Superheroing. You’d just have to be a little more creative.”

“That’s kind of easy for someone with lightning powers to say.” Justin glances down at his bare feet. “Besides. I had to quit my lighting job because they haven’t quite been working since I left the hospital.”

“Wait, why would you have to quit just because your powers aren’t working as well?”

“Eh, the thing is . . . I mostly just relied on my powers to control the lighting. I never learned how to handle the machinery. And they were in the middle of an important production—one that could put them on the film industry map. They couldn’t really afford to keep on an amateur lighting technician—especially one that already had to be part-time due to school.”

“If that’s really what you want to do, why not just learn how to work the tech box? That way, you can do what you enjoy regardless of your power's state.”

“You really think I could?”

“Well, yeah! People without powers do that job all the time. You’ll just have to put a little more dedication into it.” Harry grasps both of Justin’s shoulders and smiles. “Then you’ll be back at it in no time!”

“Uh, Izulu?”

“Hmm?” Harry opens his eyes and wonders when he shut them. He sees Justin’s hair standing on end. “Oh! Sorry!” Letting go, Harry steps back. “I forgot myself there.”

“Uhm. That’s fine. You didn’t fry me or anything.” Justin walks to the front door and yanks his hand away from the handle when the metal gives him a sharp shock.

“Er . . . I can show myself out.”

Justin laughs under his breath. “Yeah, okay.”


	11. Chapter 11

Harry arrives back at the Weasley household, and it’s more boisterous than he remembers it being for weeks on end. He grabs Ginny’s arm as she goes to pass him in the hall. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, you haven’t heard yet?”

Shaking his head, Harry says, “Been out all day.”

Ginny nods in understanding, her red ponytail bouncing where it hangs through a hole in her mask. “Poppy Petal made a breakthrough with the poison. The heroes affected should be all right in a few days.”

Harry feels so relieved that he actually powers down without thinking about it.

“Yeah, everyone’s feeling pretty upbeat about it. While I didn’t doubt that Poppy could do it, I certainly won’t miss the weird tension that’s been in the house.”

Giving her a weak smile, Harry lets her go, and she heads up the stairs—probably to see Luna before their night patrol.

In Harry’s case, he heads off to find Ron and Hermione. He’s got a lot on his mind after talking to Finch-Fletchley.

He finds the two of them in the kitchen, chatting with Mrs. Weasley about the good news and what Molly plans to make in celebration. Greeting Mrs. Weasley, he makes some excuses to her before dragging Ron and Hermione to the basement.

“What’s going on, mate?” Ron leans against the banister, arms crossed in front of his chest.

Hermione sits on a bar-stool after she moves the box on top of it to the floor.

Harry paces in the narrow path empty of junk and storage boxes. Finally, he stops and says, “So, you know how I went to talk to the witness today?”

“Oh, yes! What did Justin have to say?” Hermione suddenly waves her hands before herself. “Wait, hold on. We should probably get the other heroes involved in the case—”

“NO!” Harry’s movements are swift and somewhat jerky as he makes an aborted attempt to approach Hermione.

Hermione sits back down on the stool she had risen from. “Why not, Harry?”

“B-because!” He makes a frustrated motion with his hands and tugs a bit at his hair. “Just . . . . Just listen for a second, okay?”

Slowly, Hermione crosses one leg over the other and glances briefly at Ron. “Okay. If you say so, Harry.”

“T-thanks.” He takes a minute to regain his composure. “Paper Dracon was involved in the kidnapping case.”

“No way,” Ron says at the same time Hermione gasps.

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?” Hermione asks.

Harry hates how gentle her voice sounds. “Yeah, I’m sure. I’m also sure that I now know why he looked so banged up that night I found him.”

“Let me guess,” Ron says. “From the hostages kicking his ass?”

“Er . . . no. Actually, from the robot he and a colleague originally set on the people they kidnapped. Turns out the thing turned on him and attacked him. They got into enough of a fight that it caused the explosion, as well as gave Dracon the injuries I saw him with later.”

Ron clicks his tongue. “Don’t feel too beat up about it, mate. The guy’s always been a tosser. Not really on you for hoping any different.”

Sometimes, Harry also hates how much his friends know him. He lets out a long sigh and scrubs a hand down his masked face. “I know. It’s just . . . . Of course, the reason he was injured was due to some nasty situation of his own making. And, damn it all, his nonsense got people killed this time.”

“Did he actually kill any of the people kidnapped?” Hermione asks.

“. . . No. At least not directly, and probably not on purpose. Mostly it was just collateral from his fight with the robot.”

“Do you know who the accomplice was?”

“The witness didn’t give me a good enough profile of him for me to know for sure. But if I had to guess, based on the situation he described, I’d say it’s definitely another Agency villain. And my money’s on Fear-Near.”

“That’s an older villain, isn’t he?” Ron asks. “Sounds more likely that Paper Dracon was the accomplice in the situation.”

“We don’t really know anything like that for sure. But what we do know is pretty damning.”

“Look. Just try not to get too bent up over it. All right, mate?”

“I hear you. It’s just—” Even though the event in question is a month in the past, before any of the other more recent interactions have taken place, Harry can’t help but feel disappointed. “And to top everything off, Justin Finch-Fletchley claims he’s been unable to use his powers since the incident, and whatever happened in that flat’s probably the cause.”

“Harry, none of this is your fault,” Hermione says.

“When did I say it’s my—”

“I just know how you tend to think.” Her legs swing against the bar stool rails. “What about the robot? Learn anything new about that?”

“Nothing too new. Just that it can definitely attack other people and kill them. The witness couldn’t tell how, though. Apparently, its attacks came too fast to distinguish anything.”

Hermione nods, a frown on her face.

“Oh, and it has ‘red eyes’ that glow.”

“Sounds spooky enough to have been made by the Villain Agency,” Ron says.

“You know, now that you say that, Ron, I think something else makes some sense.” Harry starts pacing again while he thinks it through. “Yes. I probably should have seen it sooner. You two remember when I tried to charge the mechanical arm back to life?”

“And you passed out?” Ron asks.

“. . . Yes,” Harry says. “But before I passed out, I remember some letters on the side of the arm lighting up. They were **D-E-M-E-N-T**.”

“DEMENT?” Hermione mutters.

“Well, I actually saw the same kind of lettering years ago—just the **D-E-M** part. Back when we first met at Canary Wharf, Ron.”

“Oh, yeah. And that Paper Dracon bloke was there too.”

Harry swallows. “Yeah. I’m guessing the parts—or at least the metal—for the robots were in those crates they were trying to ship out under the radar. Acromium.”

“So they’ve been working on those things for that long,” Ron muses.

“That’s what it sounds like.” Hermione says, “Do you think they have anything to do with why they stole the hero identities and have started capturing different Superheroes?”

 _“_ Again, I couldn’t really say. If anything, this just means there’re two things we should all be worrying about regarding the Villain Agency,” Harry says.

“Well, good work, anyway, mate.” Ron strides forward and pats Harry on the back. “You got some good information.”

 _Yeah, but at what cost?_ Harry wonders.

Hermione hops off her bar stool and hovers in front of Harry and Ron. “Do you want us to pass the information along to the other heroes involved in the case?”

Harry takes a breath that feels more watery than it should be and nods his head. “Yeah. I’d-I’d appreciate that.”

“Okay.” Another moment passes with Hermione standing in front of the pair before she jumps at them and throws her arms around them both. “It’ll be all right, Harry.”

He doesn’t know what she’s referring to or why the both of them are suddenly hugging him so tight. But he feels an odd sense of calm washing over him nonetheless, and he sinks into their embrace.

 

 

~~*~~

 

 

“Letter for you.” Ron plops a thin, white envelope on Harry’s open history textbook.

Harry glances up at Ron, glasses sliding down to the bridge of his nose. Ever since he had recovered, Mrs. Weasley allowed him to room with Ron, so it's less crowded in the patient ward. This change in sleeping arrangements certainly has the perk of not having to wear his mask all the time.

Ron’s busy wrestling off his hero costume, having just come in from evening patrol. “Well, go on ahead and open it, already. I didn’t go out of my way to sneak it up here for you to just ogle it.”

Lifting the envelope, Harry turns it around in his hands. The note is sealed, and the envelope is blank on all sides. He waits until Ron sits down on the bed, facing him. “Who’s it from?”

He hesitates for a full minute.

“ _Ron_?”

“I ran into your villain friend on my patrol.”

“He’s not—we’re not—”

“And he gave me that, telling me it’s for you.”

Harry pushes his glasses back up his face and coughs into his fist. “And—and you just . . . took it from him?”

“Hey, don’t look at me like that!”

“Well, what if it’s filled with a poison or something that’ll fall out once I open it?”

Ron sighs. “Look, mate. I know you’ve been feeling really strange about him, lately, after you found out about his involvement in the kidnapping-turned-murder case, but—”

“Strange? How have I been strange? It was strange for me to be acting the way I was for the last month!” The letter shakes in his hand as he goes to pick it up. Frustrated, he drops it again onto his textbook. “I needed the reminder that he’s a villain.”

Ron stares at him a moment, hands on his hips. “I don’t think that’s all there is to it, mate, but—”

“What more could there be to it?!” His glasses nearly fly off with the emphatic hand movements that come with his statement.

“ _But_ ,” Ron says. “I gave that to you because, for whatever reason, the relationship between you and that villain has been changing over the month since the incident. While finding out his involvement in that case has affected how you perceive him now, he doesn’t have the same kind of shift on his end. For him, he always knew of his involvement, and the trajectory of your changing relationship has stayed the same for him.”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“Jeeze. Are you and I always this stubborn?” Ron mutters something about understanding Hermione’s frustrations a little better. “I’m saying that you started something with that villain. Your opinion of him didn’t really negatively change when he was involved in the Westminster break-in, or any of the other crimes he was involved in during your other interactions with him. Yet the way he’s interacted with you has steadily changed for the positive since the start of all this over a month ago.”

“Yes, but . . . this all started because I-I felt bad for him. And it turns out, I really shouldn’t have felt anything at all.”

“Why? Because he was involved in the kind of activity he has participated in for the entirety of your acquaintanceship?” Ron flops down onto his back. “Look. Hermione and I have been talking this whole thing over—”

Harry snorts. “So that's where all of this is coming from.”

“—and she said that maybe Paper Dracon as a person hasn’t really changed. Rather how you saw him. Like, for the most part, you’ve just viewed him as another enemy. But the night you found him in that ditch badly injured, you started empathizing with him. And because of that, you changed how you behaved towards him, which in turn, has changed what side of himself he shows you.”

“Do you feel really smart now that you’ve said that?”

“Oh, shut up, Harry.” Ron throws one of the pillows on his bed at him.

The pillow hits Harry in the face and knocks his glasses to the floor. “Hey!”

Ron snorts, but it’s not as joyful as Harry’s used to hearing from his friend.

Picking up his glasses and putting them on, Harry looks at Ron as he stares at the ceiling. “Is something else the matter?”

“Hmm?” Ron blinks over at Harry like he’d forgotten he was there. “Oh, nothing really.”

“Doubtful.” Harry plops himself on the bed beside Ron. “Out with it.”

Ron lets out a long sigh. “All right, then. So, you know what you told us a few days ago, about what Finch-Fletchley said?”

“For the most part, yeah.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what you said. How Justin’s not been able to really use his power since the incident and that the Villain Agency’s likely behind it.”

“Uh-huh,” Harry says warily, uncertain as to where Ron’s headed with this.

Ron raises one of his hands high above their heads as though reaching for the ceiling. “My power’s like that, you know. Takes away people’s powers and such. How’s what I do any different from what the Supervillains have done to Finch-Fletchley?”

 _Oh. Oh, boy._ Harry’s not sure if he’s entirely ready for this kind of conversation at ten o’clock at night on a Wednesday. “Er, well, for starters, yours is temporary, ain’t it? Soon as you move your hand away from pointing at people, their powers come back, right? It’s been over a month, and Justin’s reportedly haven’t.”

“Yes, but the villains are no doubt using something similar to my powers to do this to people. How can I feel at ease about that? How can I feel at ease about _myself_ as a hero knowing that?”

“Er . . . I don’t really know, Ron.” His friend’s stress is starting to bleed over into Harry. Thinking fast, he says, “How about, instead of looking at the way the villains might be using some kind of similar technique for evil purposes, how ‘bout we look at how you use yours.”

“Like what?”

“Well, for one, you not only deaden people’s powers, but you can also _amplify_ them at will too.”

“Not like that always works out either,” Ron grumbles.

Harry feels a flash of guilt but tamps it down. “Well, if you know an ally has an issue with it, you don’t do it without their permission, which is probably more important than always having it ‘work out.’”

“Well, s’not like I ask any of the villains for permission before deadening their powers.”

“Not like we ask for permission before punching them, either. Certain things you expect when entering a fight. Besides,” Harry flashes back to the incident with the mechanical arm, “I’d say your ability acts as a way of restraining someone rather than causing any lasting harm. Don’t know where I’d be right now had you not cut off my connection with that mechanical arm.”

Ron’s face has gone red as Harry spoke. Finally, he takes the pillow from under his head and whacks Harry with it. “Enough of my problems. Let’s get back to your drama with your not-quite-mate-not-quite-enemy _pal_ of yours.”

Sputtering indignantly, Harry hops off the bed. “I-it’s not a _drama_ of any kind!”

“Open the damn letter, already, and stop moping.”

“I’m not moping.” Despite his protests, Harry slides a finger beneath the flap and slowly pries it open.

Inside the envelope is a single sheet of paper that reads:

_Warehouse district. Steel plant. Saturday, 4pm. Come alone. ~ P D_

Heat floods under his collar, and he tosses the note on the desk he’s working at.

“What does it say?”

Harry doesn’t look Ron in the eyes. “He wants to meet me on Saturday.”

“Ooh, a date?”

“Huh?” Harry says with a distracted air. “In a warehouse?”

“Hmm, yeah, definitely doesn’t seem to be his kind of style.”

“He says to come alone. It’s likely some kind of trap.”

“I dunno. Do you really think he would go to the trouble of handing me the letter if his plan was to trap you there?  I mean, it was very likely that I would have looked at the letter myself, so it’s not like I wouldn’t know where you were.”

That pulls Harry from his thoughts. “Wait. Did you look at the letter?”

Ron’s cheeks turn a light pink. “Er . . . . I didn’t pry it open or anything. But I may have held it up to a streetlight to see if I could see inside.”

Harry’s mouth opens and shuts several times. Finally, he grabs the pillow off the floor and throws it back at Ron.

“Hey, hey, hey! The guy may have changed his behavior around you, but I wasn’t just going to hand you an envelope without knowing what’s in it! He could've stuffed some kind of poison in there!”

“Ron . . . .”

He holds his hands before himself. “I didn’t read what the note actually said. But I did check to make sure everything else about it checked out, okay?”

Harry sighs and picks the note back up again before letting it fall to his lap. “So, what do you reckon we should do about this . . . invitation?”

“Well, do you want to go?”

He pauses and thinks for a minute. “Yeah, I kind of do.”

A grin stretches across Ron’s face, and he jumps off the bed to throw an arm around Harry. “Okay, then that at least is settled.”

Scrunching his nose, Harry says, “Should I send him a reply? To let him know I’m coming?”

“Nah. He’ll figure that out when you show up. Plus, if it is a trap, he’ll at least be uncertain about whether you’re actually coming.”

“Yeah, well, we should probably plan for if it turns out to be one.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Ron grins. “I know just who to ask to help us out.”


	12. Chapter 12

Saturday comes faster than Harry had anticipated—which is odd since the week felt like it had also dragged out for longer than necessary. He stands before the warehouse doors of an old steel plant, his invitation clutched in his gloved hand and his electricity buzzing around him. The paper had shifted its lettering to flash the number of the warehouse Harry was expected to go to when he entered the yard.

_Pretty neat trick._

But it also means that Dracon had beaten Harry’s plan to arrive half an hour early by being even earlier himself. _The prick._

No doubt he’s already in the warehouse somewhere, waiting for Harry to show. To trap or to talk to him, Harry still doesn’t know. Part of him doesn’t want to find out, but an even larger part tells him to just rip the bandage off and be done with it.

He stares at the entrance for longer than he would like to admit. It’s only the brisk wind cutting through his costume that finally spurs him into action.

The doors screech loudly on their wheeled hinges as Harry pushes them open and screech again when he shuts them behind him.

Unfortunately, considering the room is filled to the brim with containers full of steel, Harry knows he can’t quite let his guard down despite the warehouse seeming to be empty. Villains could be hiding anywhere in the maze of crates, counting down to an ambush.

With a measured tread, Harry walks forward, eyes darting around for any sign of life.

“Kind of reminiscent of when we first met, eh, hero?” The voice comes from a stack of boxes further up ahead to Harry’s right.

Looking up to the top crate, Harry can make out a single figure standing in the dull lighting of the warehouse. “I hope that, unlike the first time we met, you don’t have any cronies crawling around.”

Paper Dracon makes a scoffing sound. “The terms of our agreement to meet were that we come alone.”

 _Technically, your note only specified_ I _was to come alone._ “Sure, but it’s always good to check.”

“Well, are you going to keep standing there, or are you coming up?”

Taking a deep breath, Harry strides for the crates on which Dracon has placed himself, keeping an eye peeled in the event of an attack. He makes it to the pile uninhibited, but he’s not about to let his guard down just yet.

As he speculates just how to climb the stack of three boxes, movement in his periphery draws his attention. A giant, flapping paper swan is flying towards him, and, swift as he can blink, Harry yanks the electricity from one of the few hanging lights and strikes it down.

“I send you a paper swan to give you a lift, and you go and destroy it?” Paper Dracon calls from above. “Fine. Find your own way up, then.”

Harry releases a shaky breath as he watches the rest of the paper swan turn to ash from Harry’s blast. Right. He can do this.

Glancing around him, Harry spots smaller stacks of crates. He nods to himself as he walks over to the smallest one, climbs up, and leaps to the next highest. Once Harry makes it to a stack that’s even with Dracon, he jumps over the stacks until he lands on the crate where the villain stands.

While Harry worked his way over, he had been aware of Paper Dracon’s gaze tracking him, even through Dracon’s two layers of masks. His head had followed Harry as he moved.

Now that Harry stands on equal footing with the villain, he can read his stance as trying to be casual, but the tension in his frame belies that. _He'd appear less awkward if he put his hands somewhere else than limply at his sides. Like maybe his pock—_

Harry cuts off the thought as he realizes that Paper Dracon doing so would be more of a threat than a sign of relaxation. He wonders if Dracon is purposefully keeping his hands away from his pockets to ease Harry, before cursing himself for thinking it.

The two of them stay there like that, facing one another on opposite sides of the same crate until Harry’s legs start to ache. Finally, Paper Dracon turns away and sits down, legs dangling over the side of the container at the knees.

“Well?” Dracon asks. “You going to sit down?”

“What? Next to you?”

“No. On the other side of the warehouse. Yes, next to me.”

“And just let you shove me off a three-crate stack the second I do?”

“Yeesh. You’re jumpy today, aren’t you?” Dracon’s sigh is loud in the stillness of the building. “No, I don’t plan to shove you off.”

With a light tread, Harry makes his way across the container until he’s beside Dracon. He stares down at the motionless villain, checking for any sleight of hand or sign of cheap tricks. When he finds none, Harry slowly levers himself down until his legs run parallel with Dracon’s down the container’s side.

“I thought you wouldn’t come. Why did you?” The dead tone in which Paper Dracon speaks spooks Harry.

“You asked me to.” He curses himself for the honest answer and thinks quickly on how best to undercut it. “I mean, come on. Who wouldn’t be curious to receive such a message from an enemy and it not be some sort of ransom note or threat?”

“Enemy, huh?” Dracon mutters under his breath in the same tone. Then he straightens his torso and adopts a strange, business-like air about him. “So, hero, you’re wondering why I asked you to come here?”

“Uh, yeah. That’s what I said.”

“All right.” He goes to draw something from an inside pocket of his suit-like costume.

Harry has his hand trained on the villain in an instant.

Paper Dracon stills his movements. “Easy, there. I’m just drawing a flat piece of paper out.”

“You’ve attacked me with paper shreds before.”

“Okay. Fine. Keep your hand ready to blast me if it looks like I’m going to attack you.”

Harry takes the villain up on the offer and tracks Dracon’s gloved hand as it withdraws the flat square piece.

Dracon flips the paper over in his hands so that the side with writing on it is facing him. “Remember our conversation a while ago? About your choice of alias?”

“Vaguely.” Yes, Harry remembers it.

“Well,” he says, twisting the paper between his fingers, “I haven’t really run into you during your patrols since the—”

Harry understands his strange hand motion to mean “attack on the Hero Order.”

“—so, with my free time not being consumed with busy-body heroes, I decided to do some research.”

“Wait. Are you saying you missed me so much that you dedicated your ‘free time’ to researching about my alias?”

“ _Ack_ -What? No! How egotistical of you. I didn’t _miss_ you. And if I did, it would certainly be in the same way I miss the constant ache in my leg.”

“How is your leg doing, by the way?” Harry can’t stop the question from leaving his lips.

“Eh? Uh . . . .” He lowers his head as though in thought. “It’s getting there.”

“Did you get a proper cast for it?”

Dracon hesitates. “No.”

Harry finds himself drawing closer to Dracon, hands hovering a good meter above his legs. “But you’ll get a permanent limp that way!”

“I know that,” Paper Dracon snaps. However, he doesn’t move away from Harry’s sudden close proximity.

Now, Harry is near enough to get a glance at what Dracon has written on his scrap of paper. “Oh. A _hah_. You really _did_ look up my alias.”

“I said I did. Why would I lie about that?”

Shrugging, Harry casts his gaze at their surroundings so as not to look at the villain beside him.

“Hey, just because I’m a Supervillain doesn’t mean I lie about everything. If I did, it would make it that much harder to trick my enemies, right?”

“I suppose.” _Though, omission is a type of lie, isn’t it?_ He bets that Dracon knows that type well.

“. . . Anyway—” Dracon lifts the note up again “—I still don’t understand. Why ‘Izulu’? Certainly was hard to look up.”

“Where did you check for it?”

“Internet, mostly. Local libraries were harder.”

“Wow. You really went all out, didn’t you?”

Paper Dracon seems to choke on his next breath. “I . . . . You’re avoiding the question!”

Harry’s not really sure who’s doing the avoiding here, but he’s not about to self-reflect. “Well, I was raised in my aunt’s house on my mother’s side; while they weren’t all that flattering about her, they were even less so about my father—when they even bothered to bring him up that is. I’d found some of my Mum’s memorabilia stored away, so I feel like I have a way to hold onto her. But I wanted something that connected me to my father, and “ sort of found that in a postcard in my Mum’s collection—sent to her when he was away from the United Kingdom visiting family.”

“Uh-huh. So, he’s of South African descent?”

“From what I could track down.”

“Hmm, so why ‘Izulu’?”

“What? It fits great with my powers, doesn’t it?”

“First off, that’s not what I mean. There’s many other names that creature goes by.”

“You think I should go around by _Impundulu_ , or _Inyoni Yezulu_? Both are more than four syllables; I already had some people trying to shorten _Izulu_ down to two. Those would have been worse.”

Dracon cocks his head. “Lu-Lu?”

“ _Ha_. No.”

“I dunno. It’s got a great ring to it, _Lu-Lu._ ”

“I _will_ walk away.”

“All right. Okay. Stopping.”

_Huh. That was . . . easy._

“And second—why would you, a hero, pick a legend associated with evil?”

Harry sits there and thinks for a bit, staring off at the distant wall of the warehouse. “Well, when I looked it up, some versions suggest it’s evil, while others view it as a somewhat chaotic neutral force—its powers capable of good or evil.”

“When I looked it up, it seemed to only talk about the evil bit. So, c’mon, hero. You holding out on some dark past?”

“Ah. Hardly. Look, if vampires and werewolves can be redeemed in society’s eyes, why not the _Impundulu_?”

“So, what, you’re out to make a good name for a creature this side of the Earth hasn’t really heard of?”

“More like a good name for myself.” A few seconds pass in silence before Harry realizes what he said.

“Doesn’t a good name come with your profession, hero?”

Logically, Harry knows if he were to look at Dracon right now, he wouldn’t see his expression. Yet for all his bravery, he doesn’t have the strength to turn his head. “Not . . . always.”

The silence stretches until Harry recognizes that the villain is waiting for him to go on. _It’s dangerous to divulge information like this. He’s a villain who hurts people._

His mouth moves anyway.

“It was . . . difficult. When I first started out. People would look at me and—wouldn’t see a hero.” He takes a breath that rattles in his ribcage. “More often than not, when I’d arrive on a scene, they’d think I was a villain. Hell, even Supervillains would, too.” Harry releases a watery laugh. “One time, this petty villain was trying to pull a bank heist and asked for my help when I showed up—in exchange for a cut of the stolen goods. And I’ve lost count of the times I was put under arrest for fighting villains.”

“Then why keep fighting as a hero?”

 _Harry, shut up now._ “Because I always wanted to be one.” His eyes blink rapidly behind his mask’s tinted lenses. “And I knew . . . no matter how anyone viewed me or treated me . . . my actions would define whether I was a hero or not. Eventually, I made Superhero friends who acknowledged who I am. Damn good ones. Still—”

_Am I really—?_

Heart pounding in his chest, Harry grips the edge of the crate on either side of him. “There was always one person, right from the beginning, who saw me for who I was trying to be. In accepting the dichotomy of our roles—with you as the villain and me as the poor bastard trying to stop you—you-you recognized me as a hero without me having to _prove_ anything to you. I-it's so stupid—But every time you’d call me ‘hero’—even derisively—you’d . . .” His heart’s in his throat, and why— _why did Dracon have to be involved in the homicide case?_   “. . . You’d make me really _happy_.”

As he says it, water pricks at the edges of his eyes, and his mouth stretches in a wide smile that he turns on Paper Dracon.

For several minutes, Dracon doesn’t move. His chest doesn’t even seem to rise and fall with his breathing.

Slowly, the smile fades from Harry’s face; Dracon’s invisible gaze starts to prick Harry’s skin into goose-flesh. He lets out a light laugh. “Though, you know, if I improve the _Izulu_ ’s image as well . . . I wouldn’t mind.”

The sound of his voice seems to break some kind of spell as Paper Dracon finally turns his head away. With eye slits facing the far wall, the villain’s chest rises and falls in an erratic fashion.

Harry is just about to ask him if he’s all right when Dracon speaks. “You have to leave.”

“Er-What?”

“Come on.” Dracon stands up and grabs hold of Harry’s upper arm. If he gets shocked doing so, Paper Dracon ignores the pain of it.

Distantly, Harry remembers Dracon’s bad leg and stands up on his own so as to not put a strain on it. Still, he’s surprised that the villain continues to grasp his arm.

He starts to tug Harry in the direction of another crate pile when Harry digs in his heels. “What—?”

“Where are we going? What’s going on?”

“You—” Dracon glances around. “It . . . . This was a trap. For you.”

“What?” He yanks his arm out of the villain’s grip. Sure, he had expected as much. But the sting from the admission blindsides him.

“I-I didn’t want to! Vol—They had found out about our . . . recent encounters. After the attack on the Hero Order. And they saw it as an opportunity to capture you,” he says quickly. “So, they had me invite you here and used me as a distraction for time.”

Harry takes a step back.

“I’m sorry!”

Harry freezes.

“I-I-I didn’t—Please! You don’t trust me, and you shouldn’t—but . . . . Come on. They’ve probably surrounded the warehouse by now!”

When Dracon reaches for his arm again, Harry doesn’t pull away. Instead, he allows the villain to lead him along the crate to its edge where they both hop on a paper swan Dracon pulls from his pocket.

It flies them across the warehouse. Now that Harry listens for it, he can hear the distinct sounds of battle outside the walls. Ron and Hermione’s group must be clashing with the Agency Villains.

Harry’s head is spinning by the time they land on an upper level of the warehouse.

Wasting no time, Dracon drags Harry over to the wall where a medium-sized, latched door resides. He yanks it open and shoves Harry through.

As Harry begins falling through the rubbish chute, he latches onto Dracon’s retreating hand with one of his own. His heels catch on the ground as the rest of his body hovers over the gaping hole. “Wait! Why not go through with it? Isn’t this a betrayal of your organization?”

Dracon’s fingers twitch in Harry’s grip. “It—You don’t know what they’re doing to those heroes. And I—I can’t—”

“Does it have something to do with the machine you got into a spat and blew up a bunch of flats with the night I found you in a ditch?”

There’s a sharp intake of breath. “You . . . . You know?”

“Partly. But won’t they kill you when they realize—”

“Don’t go losing sleep over your enemy, hero.”

Harry opens his mouth to retort when Paper Dracon’s fingers reciprocate Harry’s death grip and yank Harry up. Their masks are barely a millimeter apart; for a few hazy seconds, Harry thinks Dracon is about to kiss him.

“Farewell, Izulu,” he whispers.

Then he lets go of Harry’s slackened hand, and Harry’s hurtling down through the rubbish chute.

He lands in a bin stuffed with uncollected refuse. As Harry lays on the pile in a daze, he isn’t sure if the delirium is a result of the harsh landing or the events that preceded it.

When his senses come back to him, he heaves himself over the side and lands on the pavement. Harry looks both ways and sees no one on this side of the building. To his left, however, comes the sounds of shouting.

Creeping his way to the front of the warehouse, he peers around the edge to see Hermione and Ron—along with the younger heroes they brought for backup—losing a fight with the gathered Agency villains. He spots enough veteran villains to know the Agency isn’t playing around with this ambush.

“No!” Hermione shouts. “They’ve got inside!”

Prancing Peacock hurls a feather dart in her direction, and she barely dodges.

Muddled as his thoughts might be, Harry focuses immediately on the Supervillain. He sends out a shock that knocks down at least seven of them.

“Izulu!” Ginny and Cho shout.

His friends run towards him, and, before he knows it, they’re rushing him out of the area.

“Oh, we’re so sorry! I can’t believe we thought we could handle an ambush!” Hermione yells as thousands of Ginny’s bats descend and latch onto the heroes’ costumes while they run.

“Yeah, mate,” Ron says as all of them are steadily lifted in the air by bats. “How did you get out?”

Harry has to power down for the bats to be willing to touch him. He shouts back, “Paper Dracon helped me get out. We have to go back for him!”

“I don’t know if you noticed or not,” Ginny yells, “but while you were having your little rendezvous, we were all outnumbered by pro-Supervillains.”

“Sorry, Harry,” Hermione calls out from Harry’s other side. “Going back now would mean getting captured for sure. We’d be of no help to him like that.”

“But, Hermione! We don’t know what they’ll do to him. They could very well kill him for helping me escape.”

“Look, I know this is difficult for you, but the best thing for us to do right now is to head back to the base and see what aid we can get,” Hermione says. “We can’t afford to lose any more heroes right now.”

Accepting that none of his friends will change their minds, Harry remains in silence for the rest of the trip home.

 

~~*~~

 

Days pass with Harry begging the other heroes to help him locate and rescue Paper Dracon after they’d returned to an empty warehouse with backup.

At first, his fellow Superheroes are reluctant, considering the bloke is not only a villain but also a villain who helped steal hero identities, attack the Hero Order, and lure Harry into a trap. While Harry agrees those are all good reasons to not want to assist Dracon, he continues to lobby in the villain’s favor. He cites Dracon’s reluctance and the sense that the young villain has been pressured into the role he has played—as also witnessed in the other young villain, Blaizing Fire. Most importantly, Harry mentions how Paper Dracon aided Harry in his escape—at great risk to himself. This last point, compounded by the others, convinces the Hero Order to spend precious resources in hunting down Dracon’s whereabouts.

As the days drag on with no hint of where Paper Dracon might be, and several attempts to scout and raid assumed Villain Agency bases that turn up dead ends for both the young villain and the missing heroes, Harry can’t help but think of those final moments before Dracon let him go. The subtle shaking of his hand as he gripped Harry’s arm; the limping gait of his tread as he moved as fast as he could to get Harry to the exit; the way he pulled Harry so close that Harry could count the smallest flecks of silver dotting the white of his dragon skull mask; the whispered words soft as a kiss . . . .

He replays that moment over and over again and wonders why he didn’t take Dracon with him. Why Paper Dracon didn’t try to come with him. As more potential leads come up empty, Harry can’t help but blame himself.

With the stress grating on him from both the Dracon situation and the overall case of stolen hero identities, Harry feels his mood going steadily downhill. After the seventh dead end, Harry decides he needs to separate himself from the other heroes before he snaps and does something else he’ll regret.

Buying a bouquet of flowers, he takes the bus down to The City of London Cemetery and Crematorium where his parents are buried. It’s a pretty nice place, as far as cemeteries go. Pretty architecture, delightful ponds, beautiful flowers in the warmer months. Still, as he passes different gravestones until he reaches the ones belonging to his parents, Harry can’t help but feel like this place is just like every other burial ground filled with lost loved ones.

Snow had been on the forecast for today, but so far, the sky remains overcast and empty of flakes. For at least a little while, his flowers will remain untouched by the frost as he lays the bouquet down before his parents’ joint grave. He kneels before them and tells them all that has passed since his last visit two months ago, including how his heroics have been going, the recent hard cases, and his mixed emotions about it all. As he does, he wonders aloud what they would have done in his stead and begs for their guidance.

When they were alive, Lily and James Potter had been top tier Superheroes despite jumping into it later than most people who typically start in their mid-teens—at least according to their scant files in the Hero Order. Lily and James had started their hero careers when they were almost in their twenties and after they became a couple. As a result, they were able to design their hero aliases as a crime-fighting pair.

With Lily’s Control over Sound and James’s Control over Wind, they became Sonic Boom and Twirlblast. They both wore full-body spandex suits—as was the fashion back then—and masks that covered their heads. Lily had pink and red circles and ringlets spotting her uniform on a light blue background while James had white and grey swirls decorating his mauve background.

James’s Control over Wind helped them tour the entire country fighting crime—not just in London. Lily’s Control over Sound gave the pair amazing stealth, perfect for hostage situations and gaining the upper hand on foes. The two of them made waves in the Super community—and probably that was why Voldemort (Moldy Wart, as he's called by the Order), the head Supervillain at the Villain Agency at the time, personally tracked them down.

He had attacked and killed the two heroes in their home just outside of London, just like he did with all heroes he goes after. The only hiccup occurred when he tried to snuff out the life of Lily and James’s son, a child one year old. Rumor has it that Voldemort’s villain power is quite terrible and is nearly insurmountable in battle—hence why all heroes would lose against him.

However, upon trying to end the life of a hero before it could begin, dear old Moldy Wart had been in for a shock.

Supposedly, when he tried to use his powers to kill the child, the distressed baby, in return, had used his underdeveloped powers for a deadly mix. The child, Harry, had evidently called lightning down from the sky and into the house, striking both himself and Voldemort.

The end result? Harry had been left with a permanent scar on his forehead that would stretch out to his entire body upon using his powers and will send electricity through him like blood through veins—but he doesn’t find that out until his early childhood days are behind him. To date, he is the only known Super who can use his power on himself.

Voldemort’s fate is less clear. Some rumors say he had been vaporized on the spot, while others claim the blast had left him permanently disfigured. Either way, he hasn’t made a public appearance since the incident almost fifteen years ago.  

While Harry knows he’s probably not the kind of hero his parents expected him to be, he still hopes that they would think he’s a good one.

He stands up when snow starts to fall, grass stains on his trousers. Not quite ready to head back yet, he decides to wander around the graveyard. In the midst of weaving around the graves, a few catch his eye as familiar names of people in history books or the true identities of fallen Superheroes. However, it is a grave marked **_Kevin Figg_ ** that causes him to stop in his tracks.

Heart pounding, he brushes aside some moss growing on the stone so that he can read the dates. He discovers that Kevin had been 17 when he died, and that the time of his passing had been earlier in April of the current year. Harry blinks and tries to remember when Mrs. Figg said Kevin had taken her boat.

With a swift tread, he rushes back to the Weasley house to grab his costume.

 

 ~~*~~

 

By the time he’s on Tracey Davis’s stoop, snow blankets the streets. Harry knocks thrice on the hardwood and waits. He sees an upper window curtain flutter and knows she’s at home. Idly, he wonders if she would answer the door; he knows that she knows that he’s here for not a very positive reason.

When she tugs the door open until it catches on the chain, he finds himself shocked by her bravery. Out of the crack, a small sliver of her face peeks through. “Can I help you?”

“Hopefully,” Harry says.

“What do you want?”

“To ask you a few more questions about Mrs. Figg’s missing boat.”

“I already told you all that I know.”

Harry rocks on his heels. “Then, can you tell me about Kevin Figg?”

He anticipates the door shutting but lets it happen.

Against the wood, he says, “I’ll tell you what I know about him. I know that he was dead and in the ground for at least three months before he ‘borrowed’ that boat.”

The door swings open in three minutes, Tracey Davis standing there in jeans and a Wimbleton pullover. “Who are you, really? Who do you work for?”

“Local secondary school Superhero. And the London public—though some might say the Hero Order would be more accur—”

“Come insi—” She grabs at his hand and gets a shock for doing so.

“Sorry. Can’t help that if I don’t know it’s coming.”

“Just . . . .” Tracey pops her head out the door and glances around. “Come inside. Quickly.”

Not wanting to look a willing informant in the mouth, he takes her up on the offer.

They sit beside one another on her couch, piping tea placed on the little table before them. After adding two lumps of sugar to his cup, he turns back to Tracey who continues to eye him warily.

“Let’s start with this: why did you lie to me?”

“Pass.”

His eyebrows raise behind his mask.

She takes his silence for what it is. “You can ask me questions, but I may not answer all of them.”

“All right. May I ask why not?”

“Pa—Actually . . . .” Her face scrunches up in thought. “It—would be . . . dangerous . . . for me to do so.”

“Okay.” _It’s a start._ “Do you know who stole the boat?”

Several emotions cross her face, and Harry can’t pin one of them down.

As it appears Tracey is struggling to decide if she can answer, Harry takes it off her hands. “I’ll assume that’s a ‘yes, but I can’t say.’” At her nod, he continues, “Why did they steal the boat?”

She shakes her head and mutters, “Pass.”

“Are they threatening you? The people who stole the boat?”

Tracey looks at him with watery eyes.

“All right. Is the Villain Agency involved?”

She jumps up and waves her hands before his face as if to silence him.

“Okay, okay. Why are they threatening you? Are you involved with—”

“No!” Her frame shakes with her conviction. “No, I-I’m not . . . .” She sinks back down into the couch, head in her hands.

“Ms. Davis, are you all right?” Harry’s hands hover above her back.

Tracey takes one of the hands away from her face to wave it dismissively at Harry without looking at him. “They threatened me the day they took it. I saw them out the window as they carted it off, saying they’d ‘know’ if I ever talked. Tried to recruit me since. I-I knew Kevin—was a year below him in school. I-If they could get to him, then . . . .”

Harry blinks behind his mask. “Wait, the Vill—uh— _they_ killed Kevin Figg? Why?”

Her head jolts up, a look of horror on her face. “I—Leave. Please, leave.”

Biting off the protestations on his tongue, Harry allows her to lead him out of the house.

As she shuts the door on him, she says, “Ask Mrs. Figg your questions.”

Harry stares at the peeling mint green paint on the wood and makes a mental note to ask for witness protection for Ms. Davis before steeling himself to head over to Mrs. Figg and ask her uncomfortable questions about her dead nephew.

When Mrs. Figg answers the door, she has curlers in her greying hair. “You’re back.”

“I’m back.”

“With news about my boat?”

“You could say that,” Harry says. “Though, I was hoping you might be able to enlighten me about something as well. May I come in?”

“Oh! I’m so happy to hear you’ve found my boat! Yes, yes. Do come in, dear. You’re getting snowed on standing out there like that.”

She brings him into the sitting room, cats crawling on every piece of furniture. Mrs. Figg hefts one off a stuffed chair and waves her hands for Harry to sit.

He takes the chair, his electricity spooking other cats away from him. “I haven’t exactly found your boat, Mrs. Figg. Though I may know who stole it.”

Her white, wrinkled face falls on hearing that Harry had not actually found her boat, but it lifts again when he says the second part. “Okay, then. Out with it! Who stole Mr. and Mrs. Truffles’s favorite play site?”

“The Villain Agency.” Harry watches as her face turns ashen.

“I-I—” Mrs. Figg sets a hand over her heart.

“Mrs—”

“Didn’t they take enough already?!”

Harry leans his elbows on his knees, and his hands come together in a praying position. “Do you know why they would . . . go after your nephew?”

“Go after . . . ?” Mrs. Figg leans back in the wooden rocker she sat on, arm across her eyes. A cat weaves itself between her legs to curl beneath her chair. “Dear, he was _part_ of the Villain Agency.”

Jolting backwards, Harry asks, “Why?”

“I don’t really know. He was always a good boy.” Her hand drops from her face. “Or, well, good to me, at least.”

“I see . . . .” _So, you didn't report him?_ He thinks.  “Do you know why they would decide to—?”

“Oh, they assured me it was some kind of accident at his funeral. Can you believe that? They had the nerve to show up at his funeral!”

“Did they say what kind of accident?”

“No, they didn’t really go into details. Just said that his ‘sacrifice’ would not be in vain, or something to that effect. Do you notice how all those kinds of folks claim that sort of thing? How someone losing their life won’t be a vain effort, and that it’ll somehow have a positive impact on the future and blah, blah, blah?”

Either his blood is rushing in his ears or the hum of his electricity is so loud he can barely hear the rest of what Mrs. Figg says. _For the future, huh?_

Mrs. Figg is prattling on about how the organization could at least have brought him flowers to put on his grave, but maybe that’s too much to expect out of bad people.

Harry collects his thoughts and interrupts her mid-sentence. “Do you know why they would take it? The boat, I mean.”

Her finger taps the wooden arm of her chair. “Well . . . . It’s a bit of a family secret, but since you told me who’s responsible for taking it—and I really have no fondness for the scoundrels—I suppose I could tell you a family secret. It’s made from really expensive wood.”

“That . . . that’s it?” _Why would they steal a boat for its wood when they could just steal from a bank?_ “There’s nothing else important about it?”

“Hmm, well . . . . Its mast is made from some rare metal.” She thinks a moment. “Acromium, I believe.”

“Acromium . . .” Harry whispers under his breath. Despite the sinking feeling in his chest, he looks up at Mrs. Figg with a light smile. “I do thank you for all of your help, Mrs. Figg. Would you mind if I ask one more thing of you?”

“Go ahead.”

“Right.” His tongue feels like sandpaper against the roof of his mouth. “Would—Do you have any of Kevin’s Villain Agency items? Like, hideout locations, perhaps?”

“My nephew did stay here while he attended school.” Her eyes haven’t lost their misty look. “I’m sure you could find something up in his room.”

Thanking her profusely while she leads him up the stairs, Harry walks through Kevin’s room—dusty from months of disuse. It’s mostly cleaned-out—probably from when his parents came to collect his items after his death.

Harry walks around the room, gaze wandering from one bare wall to the next, looking for clues—anything at all. The drawers are barren, and the space beneath the bed is bare. His hands run over the musty sheets and feels the pillow—nothing. He stares minutely up at the ceiling and counts the cracks—four.

Pacing the room one last time, Harry discovers a particularly squeaky floorboard. He rocks on it, then taps it with his foot. Beneath it is some kind of hollow.

Bending over, he pulls at the loose nail keeping it in place. Once he lifts the board, Harry finds a pamphlet of papers tied up in a string.

With a kind of reverence, he takes the bundle out of its hollow and unties the knot keeping the stack bound. Harry catches the papers that try to scatter about the floor. Taking them over to the dresser, he lays them down and sorts through the stack. A bunch of them are letters of orders given from the Agency; others are pictures of Kevin with other masked members; one looks like early schematics for the **_DEMENT_** robot. But the real treasure he finds are the letters demanding Kevin report to specific Villain Agency bases. One, they so helpfully name, the Mother Base, and it’s located in Kensington.


	13. Chapter 13

Sneaking into the Villain Agency’s main base goes without a hitch. Considering they had two pro heroes scope out the place for a few days, the success shouldn’t come as a surprise. But the Hero Order has gotten used to being out-maneuvered by the Villain Agency over the past few weeks.

Harry had arrived at the mansion after dark, feeling exposed wearing only a carbon copy of the Villain Agency henchman standard black jumper, tan trousers, Venom under-mask, and all. Even worse, if he hopes to remain unrecognized, he can’t afford to power up. And in the event he _does_ have no choice but to use his powers, revealing himself to be the Superhero Izulu, he’d prefer for the villains to not recognize his real voice after the fact. So, in the event that he gets accosted by anyone, Harry has a Plan.

It’s not like Harry can complain, either. This was his idea. Or at least part of it. Hermione had been the one to suggest temporary contacts that make his eyes itch instead of wearing glasses that could easily fall off and blind him. (“They’re not attached to your head, Harry, like the tinted lenses on your mask!”) Of course, Harry had asked why not add a pair to the mask’s design like she had the time he impersonated Blaizing Fire, to which she’d said that it would be too dangerous to alter the design of the under-mask without the identification mask covering it.

All of the older heroes have had to deal with their identities being stolen. For Harry to put his on the line for this mission? Not ideal, but a risk he’s willing to take to rescue the missing heroes and Dracon.

_To think that that villain would be on my rescue list someday._

With caution, Harry deftly had followed two men inside a bustling kitchen as they returned from dropping the rubbish outside. Just as reported, the chaos in the kitchen afforded Harry the cover he needed to slip into the main section of the large house.

As the door swings shut behind him, Harry fingers the communicator in his trouser pocket. _Not quite time, yet._

The kitchen links to what appears to be a dining hall, elaborate with its long wooden table with intricate designs carved into its legs spanning most of the room and its Persian Rugs covering the buffed, wood floor. Heavily detailed paintings of forests and meadows line the walls, and two crystal chandeliers hang from the ceiling.

Little wonder such a beautiful place had not been suspected for harboring some of the most dangerous criminals Britain has ever seen.

Continuing his casual stroll, Harry exits the dining hall and enters into the main corridor. _Now where to find prisoners?_ His gut instinct says the basement, but he doesn’t know where that would be.

He could just try opening different doors and see what happens. While that tactic would increase his likelihood of running into villains, this had been why he’d come in his disguise. And even if his under-mask were to be ripped away, he might still be in the clear. Without his electricity running through him, he hardly looks like the Superhero Izulu. His hair is down, and only the scar on his forehead remains after not powering up all day.

He tries the first three doors to the left of him and finds a ballroom, a loo, and a closet. Upon opening the door to the ballroom, a maid catches him and asks what he’s doing. Prepared, Harry removes the note in his other pocket that reads: _Hi! I’m a new hire, and I’m just familiarizing myself with the place!_

When she attempts to ask him a flurry of follow-up questions, Harry flips the note over so that it reads: _Sore throat. No voice._

She nods, eyes him up some more, and then lets him go. Harry’s glad that he thought to not specify the _type_ of hire he would be. Hopefully, while hired staff would think him a new henchman, any villains would take him to be hired staff.

A lot to hedge his bets on, but the Agency seems to not be expecting the Hero Order to have located their main hideout. Worse comes to worse, he could always pretend to be an ordinary thief so as not to give away his fellow heroes. Although, what villains would do to someone committing a crime against _them_ , Harry would prefer not to find out.

He skips over the next door in the corridor as its similar design to the other ballroom door speaks for itself.  

 When Harry opens the door after that one, he comes across a large drawing room more elaborate in decor than the dining hall. Yet he is not afforded time to take in many details as his eyes focus on several cloaked figures sitting throughout the room.

Their masked faces turn toward him, and his blood runs cold in his veins. When two of them stand up from their seats, Harry forgets himself in his panic. He shuts the door closed, thinks briefly about holding the handle immobile, and then starts to speed walk back the way he came.

The door opens behind him, and two sets of hands grab his arms.

“And just where do you think you’re headed off to?” Vice-Net’s soft voice whispers as he lifts the mask from Harry’s head.

“Yeah. Haven’t seen you around here before,” GarGoyle says from Harry’s other side.

The two of them drag him back into the drawing room. GarGoyle lets go of Harry to slam the door behind them. Vice-Net brings Harry to the center of the room.

Harry recognizes Blaizing Fire. But the fourth short villain in the room, Harry does not know.

All of the villains crowd around Harry and demand to know who he is and what he’s doing here. Particularly considering they had not anticipated being disturbed.

He wonders if they can see the fear in his expression, and a voice in his head whispers, _I’m standing right in front of you, your enemy—unmasked. Yet you don’t even know what you’re seeing._

A thrill goes through Harry, providing him the strength to dig the note out of his pocket. He brandishes the first side of introduction to the young villains around him.

They must glance at it because it’s suddenly knocked from his fingers by the villain Harry does not know. “Bullshit you work here! You wouldn’t have tried to run from us if you did.”

The group throws more questions Harry’s way, but Harry cannot answer without giving his identity away. He dodges as one of them throws a blow at him, and he waves his arms frantically in front of himself. Then he makes a writing motion on his palm.

Harry is so wrapped up in his attempt to communicate, he can’t dodge the next fist that ends up striking him on the side of the head. Blindsided by the attack, Harry reels backward and collapses against the little table, knocking some playing cards to the floor as he jars it.

“Hold on a second.” In his dazed state, Harry recognizes that voice as belonging to Blaizing Fire. “I think he’s saying he needs pen and paper to communicate.”

“Uh . . . . Should we get it for him?” GarGoyle asks.

“If we want to know why he’s here, I suspect so.”

As strange as it sounds, hope flutters to life in Harry’s chest.

Vice-Net opens a lamp stand drawer, pulls out some notepad paper and a pen, and hands them over to Blaizing Fire.

Crouching down, Fire hands Harry the items and, in a hard voice, asks him why he’s here.

Harry hedges his bets and writes for the room to see: _To play Strip Poker._

Confused muttering breaks out among the villains standing. Blazing Fire tilts back a little before Harry feels that same sensation of being studied.

Harry stares right onto the eye slits in the red skull mask and thinks, _Yeah, it’s me._

As Blaizing Fire stands back up, Harry prays he didn’t go all in on an empty hand.

“I say we knock this smart-arse around some more until he tells us what we want to know,” the small villain says.

Blaizing Fire allows the three other villains to step towards Harry while he hangs back.

Harry closes his eyes and remembers why he doesn't gamble. He always hated a losing hand.

A rustling noise occurs, followed by three distinct _thuds_. Harry opens his eyes again to see Blaizing Fire standing over the prone forms of the three other villains.

“All right.” He dusts off his gloved hands. “Now, tell me why you’re here.”

Feeling light-headed, Harry goes to speak but catches himself at the last second. He may have revealed his face to Blaizing Fire, but that doesn’t mean he needs his voice too. Instead, Harry takes back up the pen and notepad in shaking hands. He writes: _To free the heroes and rescue Paper Dracon._

Fire doesn’t move. Instead, he provides Harry with that annoying sensation again of being measured for all he’s worth. “Strip Poker, huh?”

Harry swallows while Blaizing Fire shakes his head.

Then, Fire removes his identification mask, his outer coat, and his gloves and reaches for his under-mask.

Biting his lip so hard he nearly pierces the skin, Harry moves to shield his eyes.

“What? It’s hardly a new sight.”

Harry shrugs but doesn’t look. _But my side won’t kill me for it,_ he thinks.

“Look. If you’re fine with me seeing you, I’m fine the other way around.”

Taking a deep breath, Harry removes the arm covering his face. His green eyes connect with Fire’s deep brown ones, and Harry notices the smirk he wears. Movement out of his periphery draws Harry’s attention to where Blaizing Fire is removing his black trousers.

A hissing sound comes from Harry as he rushes to obscure his view again. He can hear Blaizing Fire laugh. Suddenly, he feels the clothing hit against him as Fire evidently tosses the articles Harry’s way.

Opening his eyes, Harry sees Fire moving to lie beside his unconscious comrades. For the second time that night, Harry finds himself impelled to speak to the villain. As he opens his mouth, however, Blaizing Fire brings a finger to his lips and darts a pointed glance at the body closest to him. Upon realizing that Fire _gets it_ , Harry swallows hard and nearly chokes on his tongue. With unsteady fingers, Harry writes on the card: _What are you doing?_

“Paying in advance. And I’m betting on you.”

Harry scribbles: _Don’t you remove clothing when you lose?_

“Hah. Not in Villain Strip Poker.” He winks. “Though, if you want to bet your trousers in exchange, I won’t complain.”

Starting to understand what the villain is getting at, Harry works to remove his own Agency-standard trousers in exchange for Fire’s more distinct ones—careful to move the communicator over to Fire’s trousers pocket. He goes to hand Blaizing Fire the clothing he wore, but the second they leave Harry’s body, Hermione’s copy of an Agency uniform dissolves into thin air.

“Well . . . . That was something,” Blaizing Fire says. Then he motions with his head. “Three doors down the next corridor.”

Excitement thrums in Harry’s veins as he dons Blaizing Fire’s costume once more. However, he hesitates before putting on the two masks and looks to the villain lying prone on the floor. Feeling determination drive him, Harry picks up the pen and notepaper. He scribbles out a note that reads _I’ll come back for you_ and places it on Fire’s bare chest laced with its own scars.

 The villain lifts the note and reads it as Harry pulls the two masks over his own head—the copy under-mask Hermione made having dissolved when Vice-Net pulled it off. He snorts and gives Harry a sidelong look. “Don’t fret your pretty head about it. Now, piss off before I lose my bet.”

A part of Harry wants to stay and argue, but time is short. Plus, he’s already trusted Fire’s judgement more than once. He’ll have to trust the guy can take care of himself. Nodding once, Harry pockets the notepad and pen, and he heads out the door.

Following Blaizing Fire’s directions, he strides to the end of the current hallway and turns down the adjacent one. Harry counts the doors until he reaches the third one. Collecting his courage, he gently twists the knob and pushes it open.

A darkened stone stairway greets Harry. As the door swings wide, dull lights affixed along the walls flicker on and lead the path downward.

Remembering he’s dressed as Blaizing Fire, Harry takes confident strides down the steps—going down, down, _down_ —until he reaches a long stone corridor at their bottom. The lights already shine in this underground lair and cast shadows along the walls.

To the left, Harry finds a lab of some sort, filled with test tubes, strange liquids, and robot parts. To the right, Harry comes across a door part-way to the corridor’s end. It’s locked when Harry presses down on the handle; he looks around for a key along the wall and finds nothing. He heads back to the lab and locates a single key dangling on a hook by the entryway.

When he slides the key into the lock of the mystery door, it fits perfectly. Bracing himself for what he might find, Harry shoves the door inward.

This room doesn’t light up at first when he opens the door, so he stands there, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The fabric of Fire’s under-mask certainly doesn’t aid Harry’s visibility.

Finally, though, the room comes into focus. It’s a wide space with pillars scattered throughout. Harry spots some chains attached to the walls. As he looks around, movement catches his eye, and he realizes how many _people_ are in here. He recognizes some heroes like the pair that went missing up north, while others, he does not know. Scanning the group of masked faces, Harry does not see anyone wearing a costume or set of masks similar to Paper Dracon’s.

Happy, nonetheless, to find the missing Superheroes, Harry takes a step inside the room.

A hero off to the side rushes up and hits him in the head with a food dish. “Off with you, villain! Haven’t you lot done enough?”

Another person grabs the hero and pulls him back. “Sir Cadogan! Please don’t antagonize him!”

The blow Sir Cadogan dealt to Harry caused him to stumble, but as the older hero is removed from Harry’s personal space, he recovers his senses.

Right. He’s dressed as a Supervillain now. Not an unmasked civilian. Of course the captured Superheroes would be distressed to see him. As much as he’d like to reassure all the prisoners that they don’t have to fear him, he’s all too aware there may be listening devices planted along the walls—perhaps the other reason for Fire speaking so vaguely to him and having Harry continue to write his words down. Additionally, it’s too dark in here for them to see any note he’d write . . . .

Gathering Fire’s coat tighter around him, Harry walks back out into the hallway, whips out the notepad and pen in his pocket, and, against the wall, scribbles: _Hero in disguise. Will leave door open a crack. Leave when time comes. You’ll know when._

Then he heads back inside and, instead of wrangling someone to head back out into the corridor with him, holds out his hand for someone to choose to take. Regardless, fearful muttering breaks out amongst the group, speculating about why he went out into the corridor again only to come right back, as well as the odd shift in treatment. Some worry the change in behavior indicates a particularly horrendous experiment. Still, Harry waits, even as more precious time ticks away.

Finally, a middle-aged heroine steps forward, head held high. She looks down her nose at Harry in a way that makes him feel guilty—despite the fact that he’s a hero come to help. In a Scottish brogue, she says, “I’ll go with you.”

She doesn’t take his hand, so Harry lets it swing back down by his side. Together they walk out into the corridor where Harry hands her the note.

“What’s . . . ?” Her grip tightens around the sheet of paper, and she glances sharply back up at Harry. “Who . . . ?”

Harry brings a finger up to where his lips would be under the two masks. Then he beckons her closer.

Drawing herself up, she says, “This had better not be one of your nasty deceits, villain.” Still, the hope of freedom is too much for her and wins out over her caution.

Once she’s beside him, Harry leans up to her ear and whispers, “Superhero Izulu reporting for duty. Can’t stay around to help out. I’ve got another person to set free.”

Pulling back, he sees her swallow; then she gives a tight nod and folds the note up.

“Just so you know, most of us have lost use of our . . . abilities due to that special device they’ve been perfecting. I hope this—” she waves the folded note “—accounts for that.”

A pit forms in Harry’s stomach, and a voice in his head whispers, _too late, too late_. However, he collects himself as best he can and does his best to assure her. Yes, the escape on the heroes’ end might be more difficult without their powers to help them, but the way Harry and the rest of the free Hero Order planned it out, the captured heroes wouldn’t necessarily need their powers to succeed.

He ushers her back inside the spacious cell, assuming she’ll pass the news around to everyone in there.

Just as promised, he doesn’t fully close the cell door. Harry pockets the key rather than running it back to the laboratory; now, at least, if a villain stumbles upon the unsealed door, they won’t be able to lock it again.

Feeling lighter after having found the Superheroes and passed along the message of escape, Harry continues his walk down the corridor to the far door at the end. As he draws closer, he notes a trolley with a white cloth draped over it pushed off to the side.

Once he’s near, Harry lifts the sheet enough to get a glimpse of a full mechanical form before he drops it again. A shudder passes through him.

Resolutely, he turns away from the covered machine and walks up to the door. Harry is about to try the handle when the sound of voices from the other side of the wood stop him in his tracks.

“. . . face my displeasure,” a high, hissing voice says. “Why you insist on prolonging this, I find difficulty in understanding.”

Another voice says something too low for Harry to catch. He presses his head against the door to hear better.

“That still doesn’t answer my question. Why were you so compelled to assist that young hero escape from us? Fully knowing the consequences of such a betrayal.”

“Why don’t you just use your Control over Bodies to rip the answer from my mind?” The ragged voice sounds like Paper Dracon’s drawl.

“You’d like me to try that again?” The hissing voice makes a humming sound. “Will it be more flashes with this hero smiling, glowing in back alleyways, and having sunlight shine on his raven hair?”

Harry’s thoughts go blank.

“Oh, young Draco. I certainly do hope you’re not holding out because you think this golden hero will come for you?” His voice grows further away from the door and drops an octave. “When has a hero ever wasted his time rescuing a villain? His enemy?”

 _How about right now?_ Yet Harry’s limbs disobey his commands to open the door, heart pounding inside his chest.

“Did you go along with the plan to lure him to the ambush site so as to curry his favor by letting him go? Were you hoping to ingratiate yourself with him? Maybe see for yourself what it’s like to play hero?” The hissing voice pauses. “Did you think you could escape what you are? Do you honestly believe that when that hero looks at you, he could see anything more than a villain?”

 _Yes._ An ache rises in Harry’s chest. _I do._

Harry recognizes Paper Dracon’s humorless laugh. “No. I’m under no illusions. If I was, I might I have tried to go with him.” A loud coughing fit halts his words, and, when he next speaks, his voice comes out hoarse. “But I . . . . I did this for myself. A lifetime of having my future, my actions, and my path, planned, coerced, and laid out for me—For once in my life, I made a decision that felt like a choice.”

“Tell me. How does it feel now?”

“The best choice I’ve ever made.”

 _What I wouldn’t give to see your face right now_ , Harry thinks.

A wheezing, choking noise comes from the other side of the door, and a new voice that Harry recognizes as Prancing Peacock says, “Please! Forgive his insolent tongue, Voldemort, sir. He’s been in isolation for four days and no doubt has grown restless.”

As much as Harry wants to bust down the door, he knows he stands no chance against two professional Supervillains. His goal is to figure out a way to get Dracon out alive, not get the both of them killed.

Rustling and hacking sounds reach Harry’s ears even as his fingers rest against the door handle.

Prancing Peacock continues, “I still don’t understand. If you had no delusions about the matter . . . ?”

Dracon’s voice cracks as he tries to speak. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah, I hadn’t deluded myself with a future with that hero—never even got to see what color his eyes were. Still . . . .” His voice turns wistful. “It made for such a nice dream. I suppose I should have known I was ruined then.”

This time, rushing footsteps are heard on the other side of the door. “When?” Prancing Peacock demands. “When did this happen, Draco?” The sounds of rattling chains come from the direction of Peacock’s voice. “What did that bastard hero do to ruin my son?”

 _Prancing Peacock is Paper Dracon’s father?_ Harry scans his memories for some kind of family resemblance. _Wait . . . Draco? Have I been pronouncing “Dracon” wrong this whole time?_

“Remember when I was seven, Father, and I went to plug in that battle simulator when the power surged, and I got zapped? It was like that. Sudden, overwhelming, thrilling, and over way too fast to have been real."

“More vague answers, I see,” Voldemort says. “We’ve tried my extensive interrogation and torture techniques—albeit, I admit they’re not what they once were since that . . . incident. We’ve tried solitary confinement, and now we even let your father speak to you. Yet, you refuse to yield any further information regarding this beloved hero of yours.” He sighs as though in disappointment. “That’s quite all right. We’ll probably kill that hero eventually.

“Now,” he continues, “I say we move on to the next stage of your punishment for betraying us. Just outside this room, we have an object everyone in the Agency has grown familiar with—”

“Sir, please—”

“Silence when I am speaking, Lucius!”

“B-but, the **DEMENTOR** will kill him!”

“If you ever interrupt me again, I’ll kill _you_. And, yes, it will. What did you think the price of treason was? At least this way, we’ll get to preserve his powers and continue to use them to our ends. After all, it would be such a waste to lose such talent—”

“Don’t touch me!” Dracon snarls.

“Hmm. We’ll see how long that feistiness lasts while the machine drains you dry.”

At the sudden sound of footsteps approaching the door, Harry only has time to back up enough to stand beside the trolley and remember himself. _Blaizing Fire, Blaizing Fire. I’m dressed as Blaizing Fire. Don’t cock this up._

The door swings open, and Harry comes face to mask with the Supervillain who killed his parents and tried to kill him a decade and a half ago. It takes a few stunned seconds for Harry to take in the bald, gnarled, and splotched head of Voldemort who turns red eyes on him. _Guess I wasn’t the only one to leave our confrontation with scars_. Harry suspects the red tint to his eyes comes from permanent damage similar to the rest of his scars.

“So, Blaise,” Voldemort starts, a chilling grin stretching his features. “The young villains have decided to send you along? Quite generous of them to give you another chance to redeem your disgraceful capture.”

A thrill of fear shoots down Harry’s spine. _And I’m not even Blaizing Fire!_

Knowing that he can’t speak since Voldemort would know his voice does not belong to Fire, Harry opts to bow and prays that would be enough.

“Bring the trolley inside.”

On stiff legs, Harry goes to wheel the trolley into the chamber. His hands shake a little as he enters and sees two figures in his periphery. He’s willing to bet anything that Paper Dracon is unmasked, and, therefore, Harry can’t even look his way to see how he fares.

Instead, Harry decides to face Voldemort who stands closest to the door.

“Come here, Lucius.”

At Voldemort’s summoning, Prancing Peacock shuffles over in the most demure and subservient stance Harry had ever seen him take, head held low.

“Now.” Voldemort rubs his hands together. “You’re familiar, Draco, with what lies under this sheet. In addition to our upgraded **DEMENTOR** model—” He lifts the sheet up enough to reveal the lower shelf “—I’m sure you’ll recognize your Agency costume. Blaise, I know what you’re thinking—”

_‘Convenient’?_

“—and, yes. I do expect you to burn it once you’re finished here with the traitor.” He tugs a key out of his pocket and tosses it at Harry who catches it out of reflex. “Be sure to lock up when you’re done here. Do well, and I might take you off your probation.” Then he gives a chilling smirk in Paper Dracon’s direction before grabbing Prancing Peacock by the back of his costume and dragging him out.

As the door begins to creak to a close, Harry strides swiftly up to it and shoves the notepad into the opening, preventing it shutting all the way. Voldemort may have given him a key, but Harry would be daft to put trust in anything that villain says. For all he knows, it’s a fake, and, once the door shuts, he’d be locked inside with Paper Dracon and unable to escape the **DEMENTOR**.

In the distance, he can hear what sounds like Peacock begging Voldemort to spare his son.

 _Little late for that,_ Harry thinks.

With care, Harry turns around, studiously keeping his gaze averted from Paper Dracon pinned to the far wall.

“Well?” comes Dracon’s ragged drawl.

 _Right. I should go about trying to free him_.

His head turned away from the direction of Dracon’s voice, Harry shuffles back over to the trolley. He lifts the sheet enough to see Paper Dracon’s costume, under-mask, and dragon skull mask on the bottom shelf. Yeah, he was right to assume Dracon stands exposed behind him.

Harry’s skin prickles while he collects the articles into his arms, certain that he can feel a set of eyes riveted to his back. _Do you know it’s me? Last time, you could tell I wasn’t Blaizing Fire. Do you know now?_

Harry couldn’t afford to ask. His thoughts of listening devices being planted in the room—or even a camera, heaven forbid—seems much more likely for a prisoner they’d been trying to break.

As Harry turns back around with Dracon’s costume ensemble cradled in his arms, he keeps his head facing the wall next to him. All the while, he feels like his skin is on fire from Dracon’s gaze.

He starts walking forward, his own gaze resolutely pinned to the wall.

“At least have the bollocks to look me in the eye.”

Harry freezes.

“Yeah, you heard me. Look at me, you coward.”

 _Sweet merciful heavens, do I want to. I want to so bad, that I burn with it. But you don’t know what you ask._ A shudder goes through Harry as he continues to walk forward.

When he reaches Dracon, he shifts his head to look downward and is alarmed to see a puddle of dried blood at his feet. He opens his mouth to ask if it belongs to Dracon, but swiftly remembers himself.

This close, Harry can hear his ragged pants of breath, and he wonders what kind of torture Voldemort meant. But he can’t think on it. The more time he wastes, the more likely he is to be discovered by the wrong people and blow the whole operation. Plus, being in the same room with the evil robot invention sets his skin crawling.

“Not even going to speak to me, Blaise?” Harry’s near enough to hear the tremble in his voice below the angry bravado.

 _You must be pretty out of it to think I’m Blaizing Fire._ Ignoring the curl of disappointment in his chest, Harry shakes his head—he can give Dracon that much.  Then he places the pieces of Paper Dracon’s costume on the floor—deliberately away from the blood puddle—and randomly grabs one of the larger pieces of fabric.

With Dracon’s coat in hand, and, without looking, Harry feels with his free hand for where Paper Dracon’s face would be. He gets as far as touching what must be the joint between shoulder and neck before Dracon yanks away from Harry’s touch. But he now has a good enough estimate.

“What are you doing?” he hisses through what must be clenched teeth.

 _Your hero’s come to rescue you_ , Harry thinks back. Then he tosses the coat over top Dracon’s head.

He lets out a yelp and tries to shake the coat off out of reflex.

Wincing slightly, Harry goes for a reassuring pat on his bicep.

This time, at Harry’s touch, Paper Dracon stills and doesn’t pull away.

 _At least he’s not trying to shake off the coat for now._ Relaxing a little, Harry finally turns his head to face Paper Dracon. _Good. Coat’s definitely covering his face up. Though I doubt we have time to get all his clothing on properly here._

Instead, Harry shifts his attention to the manacles keeping Dracon’s pale wrists bound and chained. _What slender fingers . . . ._

He mentally slaps himself. Not what he needs to be focused on right now. And, he already knew by the gloves Paper Dracon wears all the time that he has slender fingers. _Piano fingers,_ his mind helpfully provides.

His own hand clenches into a fist. He breathes in and out five times, then renews his focus on the manacles.

Grasping hold of Dracon’s wrist right before the manacle encircles it, Harry brings it closer to his face for inspection. He rubs his thumb along the fault line where the two sides of the cylinder connect.

Harry doesn’t have a key for this, and he hadn’t thought that far ahead.

As his thumb runs back up the crack, Harry’s eyes are drawn back to Dracon’s lovely piano fingers. Involuntarily, he thinks of all the times those same digits would dig into Paper Dracon’s pockets and fling sharp, deadly paper at him . . .

. . . strong enough to cut steel!

Excitement thrumming through Harry, he quickly thinks on how best to communicate what he wants. With care, he grasps Paper Dracon’s bare fingers with his gloved ones, squeezes once, then drags his hand down to touch the manacle. He does this twice more before gently shaking at the coat covering Dracon.

Hoarsely, he replies, “Right-side pocket. Near the waistline.”

Of course Dracon understands him! He’s always been clever.

With shaking fingers, Harry locates the pocket Dracon mentioned and withdraws a tiny paper swallow. He places it in Dracon’s waiting hand, then steps back to watch him work.

Paper Dracon’s hand curls around the paper bird, careful not to crush it. Then he lets it go, and it flaps and flutters before him—Harry had never truly appreciated how beautiful an art Dracon’s power is—before it dips down and slices up the crevice of the manacle. A second later, the chain collapses to the floor with a clatter.

Freer now, Dracon rotates his wrist to shake out the soreness no doubt present. Once he’s finished flexing it, he easily directs the swallow to the opposite wrist and slices that manacle off as well.

Harry’s joy is short-lived, however.

A bone-chilling grinding noise comes from behind him.

“Wha—” His head whips around to see the **DEMENTOR** sitting up on the trolley and throwing off the sheet. _But I didn’t activate it!_

“What? They didn’t mention to you that thing activates when someone uses their power? I thought you had a plan?”

Dracon must have noticed the way Harry whipped around—which means he took off the coat covering his head. _Double damn._

Harry doesn’t know how to fight these robots properly, and there’s no real way to ask Dracon without giving any listening Supervillains a clearer taste of his voice. And despite his stellar performance getting off his bindings, Harry doubts Paper Dracon is in a good enough condition to fight it, either.

Quick as he can manage, Harry picks back up Dracon’s costume pile and shoves it as his face when Harry turns back to face him.

“ _Ack_ —what the hell.” Dracon’s hands come up and scrabble at the articles shoved at his face. He goes to lower it once he gets a firm hold of the items, and Harry immediately looks away. “Okay, I get it. You don’t want to look at me for some reason.”

Harry does, but he nods his head anyway. His gaze now fixates on the approaching robot. Oddly enough, he expected the thing to be able to glide across to them. Instead, it stumbles in their direction with its arms outstretched, mechanical red eyes aglow, and circular robot mouth gaping like the Pale Man from _Pan’s Labyrinth_. Pieces torn from the cloth that had covered it stick in its mechanical joints, making it look like a creature dressed in rags.

As Harry watches its slow, unsteady progress towards them, he wonders why it had inspired such fear before.

Suddenly, the mechanical monster stops and holds out its palms toward Harry and Dracon.

Harry blinks and suffers from an immediate lightheadedness. He doesn’t think that he sways. But he must have, for Dracon steadies him.

“Come on. We have to get out of here. It’ll only get worse the longer we stay.” Dracon takes a step forward and stumbles.

Harry catches the sleeve of his coat—which he must have put on at some point when Harry had been turned away. His periphery vision catches more black further up, and his eyes involuntarily flick up.

He had put his under-mask on after Harry handed him his costume set as well.

Despite not wanting to look upon his face for Dracon’s sake, Harry can’t help but be touched by the gesture.

He helps Paper Dracon re-find his balance, and, since both of them are already at the point of stumbling around, Harry lifts Dracon’s arm and pulls it across his shoulders.

In his other hand, Dracon grips his dragon skull mask, black shirt, and black dress trousers. “As long as we don’t attack or threaten that thing, it won’t throw actual attacks at us.”

Keeping one eye on the **DEMENTOR** and the other on their escape route to the door, Harry guides Dracon along in shuffling steps. The robot doesn’t advance towards them—it wouldn’t need to, considering it stopped in the center of the cell—but it does rotate to follow their progress towards the exit and keep its palms trained on them.

Exhaustion starts creeping into Harry’s bones, but he knows that to fall asleep right now would be tantamount to falling asleep in subzero weather. Dracon’s body starts to weigh more on his as he starts to succumb, too.

After what feels like running in a vat of gelatin, they reach the door. Harry swings his free arm at it three times before his gloved fingers make purchase on the wood. Yanking it open, he and Dracon hobble through while the notepad Harry stuck in between falls to the floor.

Fully out in the corridor, Harry pulls the door shut behind them. He tries the handle and finds it locked; vaguely, Harry can hear the **DEMENTOR** ’s unsteady walk again, heading in their direction. While he knows he and Dracon have to move before they get back in its range, curiosity compels him through his exhaustion to tug out the key Voldemort gave him and try shoving it in the lock. Its teeth are too big to fit.

Feeling his whole body start to shake in low hysterical laughter, Harry braces a hand against the stone wall.

“What’s . . . _ha_ . . . the matter . . . _huff_ . . . with you, then?”

Dracon’s voice startles Harry back to his senses—or the most they can be in this hazy daze.

Harry shakes his head, shifts to face Paper Dracon—who’s slumped against the wall—and tugs him back to a standing position.

They shuffle down the hallway until they’re both certain they’re out of the robot’s range. Then the two of them collapse, huffing for breath. Harry and Dracon stay like that until the pained exhaustion leaves their limbs and starts to lift from their minds.

As the haze thins out, Harry remembers the communicator sitting in his trousers pocket. _Right. The signal._

He reaches in, feels for it, and then presses the button down three times. The first for check-in, the second for location honing, and the third for “now!”

He only has to wait three minutes before an explosion forceful enough that they feel its tremors in the dungeons strikes some upper part of the house.   

“What the . . . ?” Dracon mutters.

Harry and Dracon are near enough to the spacious cell to watch it open and a crowd of beaten-down Superheroes come out.

The woman that accepted Harry’s note leads them.  She takes a few seconds to glance around—ostensibly for any guards—and spots the two of the them collapsed on the floor. Snapping her fingers twice, she then points at Harry and Dracon.

Four heroes break off from the group and pair off to heft Harry and Dracon to their feet. Their respective pairs lift Harry and Dracon’s arms across their backs.

Nodding in approval, the heroine in charge commences to lead the group down the hallway and to the stairs.

 _Even without their Superpowers, they’re still top heroes, huh?_ Pride wells in Harry’s chest even as he’s carried up the stone stairs like deadweight.

Upon reaching the main floor of the house, Harry sees the crisp, clean elegance from earlier in shambles. Vases have fallen off their stands to shatter on the floor, crumbled bits of wall crowd the hallway, and dust scatters everywhere. Shouting comes from every direction of the house.

A smirk works its way onto Harry’s face—not that anyone around could see it with the two layers of masks covering him. The Hero Order may have been led around by the nose for several weeks, but, in this moment, they’re the ones playing the Villain Agency like a fine-tuned harp, note for note. With all the chaos and destruction the other heroes are causing, the Agency wouldn’t expect their prisoners to escape on their own.

As the Superhero group with Harry and Paper Dracon debates which direction is their best bet to go for escape, Harry glances around their immediate area. That location signal hadn’t just been so that the Hero Order didn’t accidentally blast Harry.

What Harry’s looking for is relatively easy and quick for him to spot—a giant, gaping hole in the wall located a few meters down the corridor from the staircase they’d just ascended. Despite having his two arms braced across the shoulders of two different heroes, he manages to convey his point to the heroine in charge by loudly clearing his throat to get her attention and gesturing with his head in the hole’s direction.

For a few seconds, she and the other heroes just stand there and stare at the escape route made for them all. They seem caught unaware—as though up to this moment, their escape from the Villain Agency’s dungeons hadn’t felt real. Yet, the sight of the night peeking its way into the mansion through the hole blasted there by their comrades makes reality sink in with a force that drives a few weary heroes to their knees.

“Get up!” The lead heroine calls above the din. “There’ll be enough time for that later.”

The other Superheroes evidently agree, as everyone rushes at once to their exit.

“Don’t throw caution to the wind!”

The crowd slows, but not by much. Eventually, they all figure out a vague order in which to exit, and their escape goes much more smoothly.

When it’s Harry’s turn to go, the two heroes aiding him release Harry's arms. He still sways on his feet, but he doesn’t fall. A part of him says that he should be one of the last ones out considering this is his rescue mission to see through; however, another part argues to go now, since Paper Dracon already went and is out there. Plus, from the looks of it, the heroine that took charge of the group seems set to be the last one out. He can respect that.

He leaps out of the hole and finds himself landing on the lawn after a half-a-story fall. Having not sprained anything, he looks around until he locates Paper Dracon off to the side, a good way apart from the group.

As Harry heads over, he realizes Dracon is putting on the rest of his costume. When he almost reaches him, Harry hears a distinct _crunch_ beneath his right foot. Looking down, he sees the dragon skull mask, now with its left horn completely severed from the main body of the mask, as well as a series of spider web-like cracks splintering across its face from Harry’s initial point of contact with his foot.

With the tips of his gloved fingers from both hands, Harry delicately lifts the mask from the ground. When the mask doesn’t shatter in his hands, he shifts it entirely to his left hand to hold. He then proceeds to stride up to Dracon, earlier tiredness nearly forgotten in his limbs.

Dracon’s head perks up as Harry comes to stand before him. “I figured out you’re not Blaise.”

“About time.” Harry holds out the cracked dragon skull mask to him.

He takes it and moves to affix it in place on his head over the under-mask. “I don’t know why you’d help me. Or why you’d risk Voldemort’s ire. You’re either incredibly daft, or you’re barking. Haven’t figured out which, yet.”

Harry fiddles with the cuff-link on Blaizing Fire’s outer coat. Steeling himself, he first removes the flame-red identification mask, and then he takes off the under-mask.

The first few moments after he removes the mask startle Harry into blinking. Everything is much brighter without the two layers covering his eyes, the full moon casting a light glow across the land.

Dracon’s head is cocked to the side.

Harry can’t help but grin a little as he lets the two masks fall to the ground. Slowly, he internally reaches out for his electricity. He finds it, though it feels much weaker than it normally does when he goes to power up. But that’s fine; there’s enough.

As Harry feels his power igniting in the scar on his forehead and spreading down across his face and sparking in his hair, he studies Dracon for his reaction.

What he gets is a sharp inhalation and the subtle shift of Dracon’s hands to steady himself against the tree behind him.

 Harry can certainly imagine what he must look like now, mask off as his power runs through him while on the moonlit grounds. The iridescent quality of the electricity coursing through the opening scar channels where his dark skin is visible and sending noticeable jolts along the fabric not made to contain it probably exude a power both dangerous and beautiful. Not to mention the way the whites of his eyes glow, backlit with the same power—probably the most surprising for other people, considering Harry shields his eyes with his tinted lenses when masked and powered up. Finally, it must be fascinating to watch the electrical currents affect his tightly curled hair, unraveling it starting at the roots until it stands on end.

Yeah, he knows how breathtaking the whole sight is the first time around. After all, he first managed the full effect in front of a full-body mirror a week before his fourteenth birthday. Yet, Harry can only imagine the effect of seeing it in muted darkness.

Since Dracon hasn’t moved much aside from his initial reaction, Harry goes for a friendlier smile. “You wanted to see me?”

He hears Dracon’s breath stutter out of him despite the crackling going on around them.

Slowly, as if not to spook Harry away, Dracon takes a step forward and lifts a gloved hand until it hovers two centimeters from touching Harry’s cheek. Then his hand makes a stilted caressing motion, still careful not to touch Harry’s face. “You’re . . . .”

Harry’s smile softens. He raises his arms to shrug, but Paper Dracon mistakes it for an invitation.

Suddenly, Dracon’s arms wrap around Harry, and his chin rests where Harry’s neck meets his shoulder.

Harry is just glad that he had been prepared for Dracon to brush his cheek with his hand, otherwise, Harry would have accidentally sent a mightier shock through him when he embraced Harry. The smaller voltage of electricity coursing through him since being drained by the **DEMENTOR** probably helps too.

Dracon’s hands bunch the fabric at Harry’s back, and it’s through his shaking that Harry realizes his ex-enemy is crying.

Hugging him back, Harry says in a rough voice, “Yeah . . . I am.”

They stay embraced like that for a while. Only when a particularly nasty explosion occurs do Harry and Dracon break apart.

The heroine who led the escape is marching towards them.

For a moment, Harry considers covering his face again, but he decides against it.

“Everyone’s out,” she tells Harry. “Unfortunately, we would all be a hindrance to those fighting. So we’ll hang around the perimeter of the property for one of the Order to escort us out—”

Harry shakes his head. “Extraction point’s over there.” Then he gestures to the far bushes.

She nods. “And what will you do?”

He glances to the smoking building behind her. “Fight, of course.”

“Are—Are you certain you’re able to fight right now?” She no doubt recalls how the group of escaping heroes had to drag him outside.

“Yeah. I think I can handle it now.” He’s powered up, after all. And with that comes more energy in his limbs. Though, he’ll probably pay for it later once he powers down again and can’t move for a week and a half.

“Then, thank you for your help. May we meet again under better circumstances.”

They shake on that, and the heroine heads back to her group of people to relay the news.

“So, we’re going _back_ in?” Dracon asks.

“. . . We?” Harry casts a sharp glance his way.

“Yes, _we_. Bloody well foolish to go in there yourself.”

Harry has to glance away. With a steady hand, he gestures to a set of bushes near the extraction point. “My costume’s over there.”

The two of them set off for the place Ginny had told Harry she’d have the bats drop his change of clothing.

As they walk, Harry stuffs his hands into Blaizing Fire’s coat pockets and is surprised to not find any of his matches, lighters, or bottles of lighter fluid. Although, he’s grateful not to have to worry about the latter—had it still been there, Harry could have caught on fire or caused an explosion when he powered up. Luckily for Harry, Fire had thought to keep those items for himself when handing over his clothing. He wonders if they’ll run into Blaizing Fire when they run back in.

“So . . . **DEMENTOR**?” Harry prompts Dracon while he changes into the costume left in the bushes.

“Decade-long project for Voldemort. Sort of started out after having his abilities weakened after attacking a hero couple’s young child. While he’d always been power-hungry, not being able to use his Control over Bodies to the fullest anymore pushed him over the edge, I think.”

“Control over . . . Bodies?”

Dracon makes like he’s counting them off on his fingers. “Can control a person’s physical actions, as well as compel speech. Can instigate a pain-response from the body’s pain receptors. Can even instigate a person’s death—either through shutting down internal systems or through closing off the airway.” His hand makes an involuntary move to his own throat. “Basically, he can hack anyone’s brain and have it do what he wants.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah, yikes. But he could never compel people to use their powers. According to my father—” he takes in a few breaths “—According to him, that always grated on Voldemort. With the **DEMENTOR** s, now he could just take people’s powers, and, while the robots would be the ones to have them, Voldemort would be the one to control the robots.”

Harry nods along as he listens, slipping on his hero mask. It’s strange pulling it on after already being charged up. He actually has to tug strands that stick to the inside with static out the opening at the top of his pullover mask. Normally, he’d unknot the string in the back, but he doesn’t trust how steady his hands are at the moment.

“Complete extraction process is often fatal—particularly with the newer, more advanced models. Earlier versions could only stand so much power before overheating, so extractions would occur in groups of them. But Voldemort found diluting the power across multiple robots to be wasteful. If you’re exposed to any version of it, though,” Dracon says as the two of them head back toward the mansion, “your powers could be on the blink for days, weeks, or even months. But it really depends on how long you were exposed, to what intensity, and how powerful your abilities were in the first place.”

 _That makes sense,_ Harry thinks. “That what happened to you? That night?”

If Dracon’s startled that Harry has become aware of what happened the night he found him in a ditch by North Circular Road, he doesn’t show it. “That night—I had been pestering the older villains for a while to be more involved in professional work. In a way, I got my wish . . . .”

Harry patiently waits for him to continue.

He sighs. “Fear-Near showed up to my flat—rented out for me by my . . . Prancing Peacock—with a list of people they wanted ‘captured.’ Though, ‘abducted’ would be a more accurate word.” Dracon stops limping forward and massages his leg with one hand. “I . . . was eager to please on what felt like a step up the Agency chain. I abducted half the people he wanted and brought them, bound and unconscious, to him. You know, I never asked _why_ the Agency wanted those people.”

“But, you found out?”

Snorting, he says, “That’s a way to put it. Fear-Near demanded we move them to my flat. I’d felt uneasy about it, but I did it.” He lets out a shaky breath. “Then Fear-Near comes in with a new **DEMENTOR** model. While I’d heard about it, I never really saw one in person. Once Fear-Near started to explain to me what it was after he turned it on and focused its attention on the people I captured . . . I got into an argument with him.”

Harry wants to ask about the argument, but figures there’s not enough time. “Bet he was real happy ‘bout that.”

“Oh, absolutely furious. It sort of escalated from there. The machine sensed our aggression and turned on me, switching to more of an offence mode.” Dracon starts walking again, and Harry keeps pace. “But it had sucked some of my power from me. So as I struck it with my paper, it took that same paper and set it against me. It was like fighting myself.”

Thinking back to the kind of injuries Dracon had that night, Harry agrees with that assessment.

“Luckily, I figured out it was vulnerable under the metal plating. So, I sent small pieces into the spacing at the joints, cutting the internal wiring. Unfortunately . . . doing so made it explode. I was blown out of the building, and, as hurt as I was, I knew I couldn’t stay there. Fear-Near was nowhere in sight. So, I decided to try for the nearest base up north.”

“And that’s when you collapsed?”

“Yeah.”

They both stand before the mansion’s main entrance now.

“I’m all right,” Harry says. “But are you sure you’re up for—?”

“You’re not calling me weak again, are you, hero?”

“No. It’s just . . . . You’ve been tortured for over a week!”

“Hmm. Thanks for the concern, but it’s unnecessary. I was trained as a villain, after all.”

Harry thinks back to all Paper Dracon’s said about what it means to be a villain. “You really don’t have to, you know.”

“But I want to.”

“Well, if you’re certain . . . .”

“Yes, yes. Now, let’s go before your mates are overtaken here.”

They throw open the double doors with ease—as pushing on them causes them to collapse inward. Stepping inside, they see almost all the house’s walls and floors have been leveled. Most of the roof has either caved in or been blown off.

The dust from the debris is so thick—and so many of the lights knocked out—that they can’t distinguish between friend and foe in the chaotic fray before them.

“We have to find Voldemort,” Harry shouts above the noise.

“What? Why? That’s too dangerous!”

“I’m willing to bet this whole thing starts and ends with him.” Without waiting for more of a reply, Harry wades into the crowd of jostling bodies battling it out.

He notices Nix-Nymph back at it, using her Control over Form to change the size of the costumes the villains wear—either making it small enough to constrain movement or large enough to impede movement. Additionally, he sees her shifting the remaining pieces of roof above them into stalactites with nowhere to hold on to and nowhere to head but downward.

Moon Howl holds his own against Fear-Near, having summoned plenty of wolves to help him out beforehand.

Hermione and Ron face off against Lady Strange, although Harry can’t tell how they’re faring from this distance.

Luna and Ginny appear to be handling their battle against Vice-Net and GarGoyle well enough.

 _Though, if those two are up and about, where’s Blaizing Fire?_ Harry wonders.

He looks around, but he doesn’t spot the odd villain anywhere. Harry does see, however, Cho fighting a small army of **DEMENTOR** s on her own.

She floods one robot’s internal circuits after another with water spouting from a burst pipe. Against the mechanical monsters that seem to be playing tug-of-war with her over control of the water, she takes them down next. One by one, she causes them to explode. Evidently, whatever upgrades the Agency gave the robots, they certainly didn’t make them Cho-proof.

Harry knows he’s preserving the electricity he has left in his system to go against Voldemort. He doubts, though, that if he had planned to assist in these other battles taking place that he would want to get in Cho’s way.

He feels a tug on the back of his uniform.

“Hey! Don’t go running off like that!”

Harry turns around to come mask to mask with the pearly dragon skull. “I told you, we have to find Voldemort to end this. I don’t want anyone to die who doesn’t have to!”

“And I said that’s dangerous! So, you shouldn’t be running anywhere on your own. And especially not to face him alone.”

“So, does that mean you’re coming with me?” Harry means it sarcastically. However . . . .

“Yes.”

He blinks behind his lenses.

“Besides, I have something special I’ve been saving up for ages.” He pats the pocket over top his heart.

_Well, all right then._

Since Harry has managed to identify most of the Supers on the battleground, that just leaves two conspicuous figures having at it on the last crumbling staircase. He leads Dracon towards the two people having the strangest battle—one keeps flopping to the ground or against the railing, while the other will occasionally claw at his own throat.

By the time he and Dracon reach the bottom of the stairwell, the battle ends. The victor shoves his opponent’s body down the staircase, leaving Harry and Dracon to jump out of its way. When Harry glances at the corpse, he sees Alpha Bee’s star-studded costume.

Numbness floods Harry’s senses. Distantly, he thinks he can hear Dracon’s voice calling out to him, saying something unintelligible. _Does it really even matter, though? Alpha Bee is—_

Harry is jarred from his trance when he gets painfully knocked to the floor.

Paper Dracon is on top of him, evidently having just tackled Harry to get him out of the way of a misfired shot from one of the other battles. However, he doesn’t seem to realize he has managed to bring Harry back to reality, for he leaps back up without asking after Harry’s well-being and shoves his hand into the pocket over his heart.

Withdrawing his fingers, he pulls out a small, green serpent-shape. He flings it at the stairs where Voldemort has descended to at least halfway down. As the paper creature falls through the air, it grows twice, thrice—ten times its original size! From the many scales covering its “skin,” Harry could easily claim this is by far the most complex of Dracon’s work.

The giant paper snake slithers the rest of the way up the stairs and curls around Voldemort, blocking his path in any direction. Hovering over the Supervillain, at Dracon’s orchestration from down below, the snake opens its mouth to reveal sharp paper fangs. Although its hiss is silent, the snake’s threat still makes Harry shudder a little from where he sits.

_Glad I didn’t have to face that in battle._

Staring down the fearsome beast, Voldemort whips out from the pocket of his black pantsuit a remote control. He fiddles with it a bit.

The next second, five of the **DEMENTOR** s from Cho’s fight break off from the group and spray the snake with water.

Part of its middle collapse in on itself in a soggy mess, and a section of the back of its head breaks off. As this occurs, the rest of the snake loses its green coloring, fading to an ashen color.

Throughout this process, Paper Dracon has been directing from the bottom of the staircase. Even now, his hands still hover like a maestro. When all the color has faded from his giant serpent, Dracon waves his hands away from one another like the movement of arms in the Breaststroke.

The Snake looks as though its scales are peeling at first, before the entire creature comes apart in a flurry of paper. The parts that had been ruined by the water remain on the floor. But these new creatures surround Voldemort in a furious tornado.

If Harry’s not mistaken, he’d say they were thousands upon thousands of paper cranes.

Dracon’s hands are going wild now in furious motion.

Both him and his creation are so mesmerizing, Harry isn’t sure which one to watch.

However, when Dracon makes a choking noise and collapses to the floor, Harry bolts back to his feet.

The paper storm surrounding Voldemort subsides.

Alarmed, Harry casts his gaze about and notices sparks coming from some of the **DEMENTOR** s Cho thrashed. Reaching out a hand, he yanks what electricity remains in the robots and strikes Voldemort with it.

The Supervillain collapses to his knees with the blow just as Paper Dracon gasps for breath.

Harry knows he certainly doesn’t like the way Voldemort eyes Harry now. A kind of chilling recognition.

“Izulu!” Dracon has lifted himself onto one knee and is waving his arms about again. All the paper cranes that collapsed along with their director come back to life. He summons them into a swarm above his head. When all the cranes settle into their places, they form a giant hammerkop.

“Is that . . . ?” Harry feels an odd flutter in his chest.

“The paper’s infused with high-quality graphite,” Dracon shouts. “Strike it, hero!”

Not having to be told twice, Harry gathers his electricity to his fingertips. Then he shoots nearly everything he has at the paper bird.

A sizzling sound can be heard as his power strikes. Then a thrumming noise starts up as the current catches on and heats the graphite, making the lightning bird glow.

“When’d you do this?” He shouts to Paper Dracon.

“Let’s just say I got tired of you constantly setting my paper on fire.”

But as Harry looks at the paper lighting bird, realizes it’s manned by two people, and that Voldemort has two hands, he knows it won’t be enough.

Looking over his shoulder, he calls out, “Dewr!”

Ron’s head shifts in Harry’s direction as he glances at him. “Sorry, mate! Little busy blocking Lady Strange’s powers!”

“No. I mean the other one.”

“The other—?!” The hand he has trained on Lady Strange drops for a moment but flies back up before Lady Strange could attack Hermione. “Really?!”

“Yes!” Harry shouts, already feeling himself lose grip on the electricity flowing through the hammerkop. “Please, hurry!”

Being awash in the other half of Ron’s power is a lot like being submerged in a hot bath—if hot baths also had the possibility of exploding on you. But Harry believes he’s been drained enough today by the **DEMENTOR** that the extra boost would be more helpful than harmful.

Still, the rush of power he feels makes his toes curl. He could probably power that paper bird forever now.

Voldemort had wasted his few precious seconds by trying to summon more **DEMENTOR** s to take them out. Harry had figured Voldemort, based on what he already observed and what Dracon told him, would be power-hungry enough to want to take his powers before taking his life. The Supervillain would probably view that course of action as a form of justice for the one he sees as responsible for his downfall fifteen years ago.

Unfortunately for Voldemort, Cho already took out the last of the monstrous machines with the power from her own two hands.

Voldemort raises his hands—to either turn their limbs against them, choke them, or kill them—but is too late as the paper lightning bird dives down from the sky and rams the ground where Voldemort stands. Electric bursts run their way down the stairs from the point of impact.

Exhausted from the extra strain on his abilities, Paper Dracon allows the paper bird fall to apart.

Harry lets his electricity go, too. The glowing hum of the graphite quickly eats away at what energy is left from the current, and the ethereal glow stops.

Voldemort lies motionless on the stairway, surrounded by the dying emberous glow of over a thousand paper cranes.

Walking over to Dracon, who is bent over with hands on his knees, Harry pats him on the back and quietly thanks him for his help. The two of them speculate on who should go over and check for a pulse. As much as they wanted to defeat Voldemort, they hadn’t aimed to kill him. The high voltage but low current rate throughout the bird declared as much.

Cho evidently hears them, as she says, “I’ll check.”

As she vaults herself over the rail and runs up the steps, Harry realizes how quiet it’s gotten. He does a slow three-hundred and sixty degree turn and takes in the sight of Superheroes having finished their battles with their villain opponents and the remaining villains surrendering. Harry catches sight of Alpha Bee’s body again as he does, an indescribable ache rising from his stomach and up to his throat to choke him. He tamps down the urge to feel for an electrical pulse of life from Alpha Bee's prone form that Harry knows does not exist.

Facing back toward the stairway, he swallows back the tears that threaten to fall and compromise the visibility of his lenses.

Cho has made it to Voldemort, already checked for his pulse, and is trying to get him to wake up again.

Harry walks up to the stairway and places a foot on the bottom step. “What’s wrong, Cho?”

“I want him to tell me where the schematics are for the **DEMENTOR** s.”

He chews on his lips while he thinks. “Probably down in that creepy lab they have. Down in their cellar.”

“Are they destroyed?”

The hope in Cho’s voice makes Harry want to say _yes_. But . . . “I don’t—”

“Oh, are you talking about the lab with all the Agency’s research notes, experimental prototypes, and their graphic directions on how to build them?”

Everybody looks to the newcomer leaning against the other side of the stairway, opposite the way Cho came from.

Blaizing Fire, unmasked and smirking at them all, flicks open and closed one of his lighters. “Yeah. I’d say it’s pretty destroyed.”

“Oh,” Luna says. “I recognize that voice. You’re our captive.”

“Yes, I’m very captivating. Thank you for noticing.” He pushes off from the wall. “However, I’m here for whatever plea deal he’ll be getting.” Fire points a finger at Paper Dracon.

Ron starts to say, “That’s—”

“—fair,” Harry interrupts. “I’ll be sure to put a good word in when I’m called to testify.”

Paper Dracon says, “Good to see you alive.”

“You as well,” Blaizing Fire states.

And that was the end of that.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ..................... **Super Character Legend**..................  
>  **Character Alias**............~~*~~.............. Character Name  
>  **Alpha Bee**............................................ Albus Dumbledore  
>  **Batshee**................................................ Ginny Weasley  
>  **Blaizing Fire**......................................... Blaise Zabini  
>  **Ced**...................................................... Cedric Diggory  
>  **Cho**...................................................... Cho Chang  
>  **Dewr**..................................................... Ron Weasley  
>  **GarGoyle**............................................... Gregory Goyle  
>  **Fear-Near**.............................................. Fenrir Greyback  
>  **Harmony**................................................ Hermione Granger  
>  **Izulu**...................................................... Harry Potter  
>  **Lady Strange**.......................................... Bellatrix Lestrange  
>  **Mad-Eye**................................................. Alastor Moody  
>  **Madam Malkin**........................................ Madam Malkin  
>  **Moondrop**.............................................. Luna Lovegood  
>  **Moon Howl**............................................. Remus Lupin  
>  **Nix-Nymph**............................................ Nymphadora Tonks  
>  **Paper Dracon**.......................................... Draco Malfoy  
>  **Poppy Petal**............................................. Poppy Pomfrey  
>  **Prancing Peacock**..................................... Lucius Malfoy  
>  **Vice-Net**.................................................. Vincent Crabbe  
>  **Voldemort**................................................ You Know Who

In the following months, the Hero Order is given a hefty fine for having thoroughly ravaged a “perfectly lovely house in Kensington.” Considering the group of heroes are struggling to pay for a new headquarters and that they already serve the community well, they get the fine cut in half in exchange for double the service hours in Kensington.

Voldemort and the professional adult villains who partook in the development and creation of the **DEMENTOR** s, as well as planned the abductions of heroes and regular folks with powers, get life in prison.

But those aren’t the only high-profile cases to be brought to the court. Particularly difficult and prolonged are the cases given to the Youth Justice court.

Debate rages about how complicit in a crime a group of underage people can be when powerful adults compel and encourage the behavior. What truly throws a wrench into these debates are the particular cases involving the young Supervillains known as Blaizing Fire and Paper Dracon.

Unlike with the other young villains on trial, these two have Superheroes who testify on their behalf—at least a month and a half of strange behavior hinting at coerced actions. Additionally, the young villains’ assistance the night of the Raid and Rescue mission on the Villain Agency’s main base, along with no past convictions on their criminal records, also helps their cases.

For Paper Dracon, unfortunately, it comes to light that he had been an accomplice in involuntary manslaughter, paired with the abduction of at least six individuals the previous Autumn.

A day before the court comes to a decision, Harry gets a knock on his bedroom door in the Weasley household.

He opens the door to see Paper Dracon.

“May I come in?” he asks.

“Sure,” Harry says unsteadily.

Harry hasn’t seen him one-on-one since the mission at the mansion so many months ago. Both of them had been caught up in the chaos that followed the successful defeat of a bunch of top tier Agency villains, and Dracon, with Fire, had been held by law enforcement until their trials finished—both for concern that they’d flee from the law and for concern for their safety.

For Harry’s part, his time has been eaten up by school, picking up the slack in other patrol areas while Kensington gets top priority, and attending funerals of fallen heroes. Alpha Bee’s funeral had been rough on everyone, but even worse were some of the funerals held for heroes not saved in time by the Raid and Rescue, along with heroes who succumbed to further complications from exposure to the **DEMENTOR** s

Dracon is just as Harry remembers him, wearing the same many-pocketed black outfit, paired with two sets of masks.

The ache to _truly_ see Dracon has never ceased. But seeing him in this moment, just like he always was to Harry, is more than enough now.

But he wants to know why and how Paper Dracon has come to be here when he’s been sequestered away for so long because of the trial. He says as much to him as Paper Dracon settles himself against Harry’s desk.

He waits until Harry sits on the bed after closing the door. “Well, I’m here right now because they don’t expect tomorrow’s decision to go over well for me. Or at least, not as well as Blaise’s,” he says, apparently noticing Harry’s concerned expression. “After all, he’s not facing charges of three accounts involuntary manslaughter.”

Shrugging his shoulders, Harry reaches across the gap between them to pat him on the knee. “To be honest, I think you do deserve to face _something_ for that. While not intentionally done, people died because of decisions you made.”

“Yeah, I know. I know.” He lets out a blustery sigh. “That’s not why I came here, though.”

Dracon stands up, and Harry doesn’t miss the shake in his hands as he hides them behind his back.

“Would you mind standing up?” Dracon asks.

Harry does so and hates that he’s reminded that Dracon is nearly half a head taller than him.

Laughing lightly at Harry’s grimace, Dracon pulls out the desk chair and sits down. “Now, would you mind closing your eyes for me?”

Harry squints at him, and says, “you’re not plotting something nefarious, are you?”

Laughing lowly, he replies, “I don’t think so.”

Closing his eyes, Harry hears a rustling noise, and then feels something being placed over his head.

Once Dracon pulls back, he says, “All right. You can open your eyes.”

Harry’s eyes flutter open, and, at first, they don’t recognize what they’re seeing. But after a moment or two adjusting, he realizes he’s looking through what must be eye slits in a mask. And just what his eyes see on the other side of the mask takes his breath away.

Dracon is sitting at Harry’s desk, both masks completely removed.

Harry’s eyes rake over his face, taking everything in. From the blond hair to the pointed nose and chin to the little scar on his cheek right below his left grey eye.

Dracon gives a nervous smile and says, “Hi. I’m Draco Malfoy, and it’s a pleasure to know you.” Then he stands up again and takes a step towards Harry. “Now, I’m going to give you a parting gift, hero. You can accept it if you want it or turn it away if you don’t. And if you like it enough, when you next see me, you can give it in return.”

Flummoxed as to what this gift could be, Harry stares up at Draco, hands sweating at his sides. “. . . All right.”

Draco takes another step forward, and they’re suddenly so close! With hesitant and halting movements, Draco leans his head down to Harry’s upturned, masked face. He hovers just before his lips touch the cheek of the dragon skull mask, waiting for Harry to pull away.

When Harry doesn’t, Draco brushes his lips against the mask. Then he pulls away and rushes from the room.

Harry blinks, stunned. After he recovers, he runs out after Paper Dracon, determined to “return” the gift right now.

He catches up to Dracon just as he’s leaving the house.

At the sound of Harry’s wheezing breath and the tail end of his shout, Dracon turns around with his under-mask back in place. “Please! Can you save returning the gift until after I see you again? That way, whatever happens tomorrow, I’ll have something to look forward to.”

Harry takes off the dragon skull mask and juggles it between his hands as he eyes Paper Dracon. If Dracon did get sentenced tomorrow, would Harry _want_ to try to start something with him now? Part of Harry thinks it’s unfair that Draco came to him today to do this; though, in a way he understands it’s his way of building up courage for tomorrow.

He lets out a long sigh of acceptance.

Dracon hovers in the doorway, waiting for Harry’s reply.

Slowly, Harry looks back up at him, and, not trusting his voice at the moment, nods.

Tension leaves Dracon’s shoulders, and he starts to turn around again to leave. Before he can get very far, Harry holds out the dragon skull mask to him. “Here”

He hesitates. “You hold onto it. So, it’ll remind you that I’m maybe not just another person you managed to save.”

Harry wets his lips and has so many things he wants to say but doesn’t quite have the courage to say them.

“See you around, hero?”

 _How is that a question?_ Harry wonders. “Think you’d be rid of me that easily, do you?”

Reaching up, he gives Dracon a one-armed hug. Then he pulls away and heads back up to his room so that he doesn’t have to see Draco leave.

 

~~*~~

 

Paper Dracon gets sentenced six years for involuntary manslaughter and breaking into a government building, yet has that sentence halved for his assistance and service to the public during the Raid and Rescue.

Izulu, the hero who saw hope in him when many others wrote him and Blaizing Fire off, sends him letters every week for the next three years. In addition, he advocates for a rehabilitation program to be offered to the other young villains during their sentences to see if they could change for the better too, given the right opportunities.

Blaizing Fire serves six months for the attack on a government building. Each month, Izulu sends him roughly eight playing cards, until, when he’s finally released, he has the full deck and an invite to a weekly card game at the Weasley house.

When Dracon finally gets released in the Spring, three years later, Izulu is there to meet him. Hand in hand, they walk back to the new Hero Order headquarters, where Paper Dracon starts filling out paperwork to start hero work.

 

~~*~~

 

Harry stands out on the balcony overlooking the local park, glass of champagne dangling from his electrically charged fingertips. He came out for some fresh air, the party below getting too stuffy for him. Handling crowds of people for long periods of time has never been his strong suit. Though, seeing all the happy heroes—Ron dancing with Hermione, Luna and Ginny snogging in a corner, and Cho giggling with Lavender, Parvati, and Padma—reminds Harry of how far they've come since worrying over the threat posed by the Villain Agency.

The sun is just setting over the horizon, bringing about that lovely time of day Harry enjoys most.

A sliding door opens and closes behind him. “What are you doing out here, hero?”

Fighting off the urge to smile, Harry says, “Taking in the view. Why’re you out here? It’s your party, isn’t it?”

The Hero Order had decided to throw a celebration for Draco filling in his hero application papers and for Blaise having his papers approved.

“Eh. Was wondering where you ran off to,” Draco says as he sidles up beside Harry.

“Well, now you know.” Harry glances at him and away again. His palms grow sticky with sweat. “I’ve had some time to think long and hard about that, uh, _gift_ you gave me when we last saw each other.”

 _It’s been three years, and even with the post sent between us, he probably doesn’t remem_ —

“Oh, have you?” Draco says lightly.

Harry turns to face him. “Yes.”

“And?”

Despite the somewhat flippant attitude, Harry can see the flush creeping up Draco’s neck from under his dress suit’s collar and the way his hands tug at his shirt sleeves.

Cocking his head, Harry takes a step towards Draco, right into his personal space. “It was nice, but I’m not sure I want to return it.”

“Oh.” Draco’s grey eyes dart away from Harry’s masked face. “I see.”

“I’d like to do you one better.” Harry reaches up and removes his own mask from his face, placing it on the balcony railing beside his drink.

Now they both stand there, faces bared.

Then he takes that same sparking hand, and has it hover just above Draco’s cheek. “I’m going to power down.” 

Draco’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Okay.”

As the electricity leaves Harry’s system, he lays his hand on Draco’s cheek.

At Harry’s touch, Draco’s eyes flutter shut.

Wetting his lips, Harry leans up on his toes and lingers there as their faces come close. His breath ghosts on Draco’s lips. “Well?”

Draco lets out a soft sigh. “Whenever you’re ready, hero.”

Closing his eyes, Harry leans in so his lips brush against Draco’s. He’s glad he powered down, because the shot of electricity he gets from the contact goes right through him, all the way to his toes.

Making a soft moan, Draco wraps his arms around Harry and deepens the kiss.

Somehow, by the end of it, Harry’s hands have tangled in Draco’s blond locks, and Draco has Harry pinned against the safety rail of the balcony with one of Harry’s legs wrapped around his waist. When they part, both are panting. 

Panting, Harry says, “Not bad.”

Draco lets out a breathless laugh. “Not bad? Well, hopefully you’ll show me the ropes in the months to come.”

Harry pretends to consider it, before he leans in and gives Draco a chaste kiss. “Okay, hero.”

**Author's Note:**

> Consent comes in many forms, and so this work attempts to approach the topic in a multi-faceted way. Along with romantic/sexual interactions, the theme of consent is explored through the concept of privacy—and invasion of privacy—and willingness to provide information, as well as how culpable a person can be for actions performed under duress and peer pressure—especially if those actions bring harm to others. Additionally, this fic also addresses the dub-con/non-con nature of the power to control someone else and the lack of consent present in situations where a person’s choice is not considered.


End file.
